Good old Beth Moore had me delving into the past again this week. Can I be honest? I am tired of digging up my drama. It hurts. It makes me sad. It makes me angry. And I don’t feel like its helping.
The themes this week ran along the gamut of “Hearts Broken in Childhood”, “Hearts Broken by Loss”, and “Hearts Broken by Betrayal”. Yep, yep, and yep. Can I just say all of the above?
Here’s the problem though. I know what happened to me. I know all of it. The good, the bad, the ugly. I lived it. I feel it in every mistake I make. Two straight weeks of examining it just felt like focusing on all that was wrong in my life, and I’m not good at that because I can feel myself falling into it, and the truth is that once my life became my own (once I became an adult who made a conscious decision to stop living in the past) there were so many more good things than bad. So many things I earned for myself. I like to focus on those, because when I dredge up the past I inevitably end up hurt and angry all over again. I inevitably end up lashing out at someone.
So, rather than dwell on all that I learned about my past and the ways in which it shattered my heart this week, I just want to focus on the few points that really stood out to me and that I think anyone could and should apply to their disheveled pasts.
There was one paragraph in particular that I underlined and read over and over again. Here is what it said:
“Forgiving my perpetrator didn’t mean suddenly shrugging my shoulders, muttering, ‘OK, I forgive,’ and going on as if those things didn’t happen. They did happen. And they took a terrible toll on my life. Forgiveness involved my handing over to God the responsibility for justice. The longer I held on to it, the more the bondage strangled the life out of me. God saw every bit of it, and He can far better represent me and uphold my cause. Forgiveness meant my deferring the cause to Christ and deciding to be free of the ongoing burden of bitterness and blame.”
I needed to read that. I probably need to read that every night before I go to bed for the rest of my life. When it comes to my mother I have a hard time forgiving simply because I don’t understand. I don’t think she ever meant any harm, but her relinquishing of all parental rights was the first time I understood that people could just leave me. It was the first time I felt not good enough to be loved. All that said though, I know she never meant to cause those scars. I know she never meant to hurt me. She just couldn’t do it all. She wasn’t enough.
It was the woman who came next to that role that intentionally scarred me though. The one who actually told me I wasn’t good enough, and who continued to do so until the day she packed up my belongings and determined that I was not fit to ever again be a guest in her home. The home I had lived in for 5 years, but I was never more than a guest in. She meant to hurt me. She meant to manipulate those around me so that I felt like I had no one. She has never admitted to any wrong doing, and has never apologized. Everything she did she feels justified in.
And it is towards her that I hold more anger and bitterness than I can truly describe. I was a broken child when I came into her home full time, and she proceeded to break me further. As an adult who is passionate about children and about helping to heal those who have been broken, I cannot fathom ever treating a child the way she treated me. I certainly cannot fathom ever doing so, and then using the excuse that said child had an attitude and was not easy to deal with; as though that excuses anything. I was a good kid. I was a straight A student who was involved in everything and didn’t smoke, do drugs, or drink. I never got in trouble. My teachers and friends parents loved me. But she made sure I knew I wasn’t enough. She made sure I knew I deserved her hatred. She made sure I knew that my mere presence had ruined her life.
I realize though that everyone else in my life has moved on from that experience. Has forgiven her for the way she taught me to hate myself. I’m the only one who hangs on to it anymore, and I know I do so because if I don’t, who will? If I forgive, if I move forward, is that like saying it never happened? Because it happened, and if it had been physical abuse you would not be able to avoid seeing the gaping scars today. Would that make it more real to the people who didn't feel it as I did?
So, I read this paragraph and I thought “there’s my problem”. I hold on to my hurt and anger (and sometimes I spit venom in the wrong direction as a result of it), because I feel like that’s justice. I feel like she doesn’t deserve to be let off the hook. Here is where I am wrong though. It’s not my job to punish her; further, I’m not punishing her. The woman could care less what I think; for all I know she still to this day thinks I am the “nothing” she always thought I would amount to be. She doesn’t have to deal with me. She doesn’t have to face me or the damage she caused. I’m not hurting her. I’m just carrying around this burden solely because I don’t want anyone else to forget.
There was another section that talked about how Christ is there when children are harmed, and how he weeps for that. It said that the sins against children are never forgotten, and that you need to trust in Christ to bring justice against your perpetrators. You need to give it to him and cease carrying that burden. I’ve carried it for so long I don’t know how to let go of it, but I would like to try. I would like to learn to give it to him and stop letting it tear me down when I least expect it to. When I’ve thought I’ve let it go only to be sucker punched by something that brings the anger again to an instant boil.
As much as I would like to picture myself as the Great Avenger (who swoops around the world righting wrongs and taking names) I’m not. It’s not my job to find justice for the sins of this world, and it certainly isn’t my job to avenge the sins that were enacted upon me. I can’t do so with a clear head, and I will never accomplish the butt kicking I would like to render. I need to surrender it. The only person I can be responsible for in this life is me. The only person I can control is myself. I can’t force other people to be better, kinder, and more empathetic. All I can do is work on me. The rest of it? Not my job.
Which brings me to the other section I underlined and read and re-read until it fully sunk in. It talked about the tendency for people who were broken in childhood to veer towards certain sins, and claim no responsibility for them because of the ways in which they were injured. It talked about the necessity to claim responsibility for those sins, and to understand that while Christ appreciates the ways in which you felt as though you had no other options, he also wants you to recognize that only you are responsible for your actions. As much as it makes sense that A lead to B, which resulted in C; in the end, you chose C.
This is something I have known for a few years, and I really have made leaps and bounds towards being better (both to myself and others) than I was at 18, 21, and even 25 (I am forever a work in progress), but I know I made a lot of mistakes and attributed them to the damage that had been done to me.
You can start with just how I treated myself. The cutting, the throwing up, the drinking too much too often, and the tendency to sleep with men who I knew were no good simply because I didn’t feel like I deserved better. And because (at the end of the day) I knew what to expect from those men. They couldn’t let me down or hurt me because I never believed they would be anything in my life to begin with. I never counted on them.
The good men however; the ones who I couldn’t quite figure out? I ran from them. Good men who saw something special in me scared the heck out of me. I was forever sure that I would disappoint them; that I could never live up to the pretty image they had of me in their heads, and eventually they would leave and tell me I wasn't enough. Some I strung along, some I threw away. Most are somehow miraculously still in my life in some capacity or another (these were good men after all; men who have strived to maintain friendships with me even as they have found real love with women who were capable of loving back). That doesn’t make it any better though. That doesn’t make the hurt I inflicted any more justifiable. I have blamed my broken heart over and over again, but in the end I’m the one who decided I wasn’t good enough. I’m the one who decided they all deserved better.
I’ve worked on me. I have molded and rebuilt and… in so many ways started from scratch. I have tried to be someone who can live up to the person people want to believe I am. I have fought injustice, and often stood by myself when I was the only one willing to stand and say something was wrong. I have never been afraid to fight for what I saw as right, because once upon a time I was too willing to take it when someone decided to inflict pain upon me. I was all too willing to believe I deserved it, and now I find myself fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves.
I like to believe I am a better (healthier/happier/stronger) version of me, but even though I’ve come that 90% of the way on my own, I need somebody to walk with me that remaining 10%. I need Christ by my side, to help me surrender my anger and to bind up my broken heart. I want to be someone who deserves that good man (and who believes she deserves it), and I want to be a mother who is strong enough to shield my child from all the hurt there is in this world. I want my children to be able to do a study like this as adults and feel like they are some of the lucky few who don’t have hurt and pain and baggage dating back to childhood. I want to surround myself with positive people and supportive friends. And I want to be whole enough to understand that I can no longer use my past heartache to excuse my present sins.
There are no more excuses. I am responsible for me. Fixing the world and righting the wrongs?
That’s not my job.
ADSPACE
