Wilde Response

Forgiveness is an ongoing daily decision one makes for oneself…….not for someone else.  Forgiveness releases your heart from the grip of bitterness, resentment, pain and sorrow, betrayal and paralysis.  Forgiveness provides the freedom to love again and find joy in every circumstance and new joy every morning.  Forgiveness is freedom.  But this doesn’t make forgiveness easy…….

     I wrote the “letter” I posted in the previous blog about a year ago,  I was raw and exposed. I had been betrayed and abandoned with no explanation…just silence.  My son was struggling and confused….what do you do with that….with something that makes no logical sense and you are not allowed to process the information, not allowed to communicate?  

   I suppose the most normal reaction is anger, hatred, bitterness…..etc But those emotions don’t “heal”, they don’t provide salve to the open burning wound, they only circumvent the wound…. tippy-toeing around it, trying to pretend it doesn’t exist, trying to pretend that we aren’t left radically exposed and vulnerable.  Bitterness and anger tell us that we are unlovable, and unworthy of concern….because if we were, the person who wounded us, never would have done the things they did.  Bitterness and anger focus our lens on what “they did to us”, how “they hurt us”, how unfair our situation is….etc,  Who wants to live there…. and who can live there for any length of time and not have it affect you negatively?

  Let me let you in on a little secret…..;)  It has nothing to do with you……. Ok now I’m going to sound SUPER cliche…hahaha bear with me…..” hurt people, hurt people”….. (insert mind blowing emoji) hahaha…..right!  

    If you are amid betrayal right now, if you have been mistreated and abandoned, if your heart is breaking and you cannot see a way out of your pain….know this…….I feel your pain…I am acquainted with heartbreak more than I ever thought I would be, and I have found that the love of God can heal ANY break no matter how many millions of pieces your heart is in…..God feels your pain He is acquainted with your pain and He gives you the ability to endure the pain……but the first steps to healing are up to YOU….not the responsibility of the one who wounded you……

    Let them go……Let God in……

I have learned that what happened to me, didn’t have anything to do with me….Don’t misunderstand me here…..in every marriage, there are little breaks, misunderstandings, and differences, that if left unattended, can turn into chasms……. I had my shortcomings in my marriage for sure….I am not without failures…… however…being lied to by the person who promises to be “one” with you, being betrayed by the person who vowed to love only you, being broken by the person who promises to protect you……those things had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the choices my husband made…..  

    When I was able to understand this, I was able to begin to heal, because it was no longer about me……. Unfortunately, my family was collateral damage to someone else’s choices……the spitfire of shrapnel flying off the bomb of broken trust and morality hit hard and fast and was deadly to both my son and myself…….BUT GOD.    Oh sweet merciful Jesus who comes to comfort and create something new….what a God we have access to…..God empowers us to forgive so that WE can begin to heal, forgive so that WE can begin to love again and forgive so that WE are free.  I may never know the reasons why my husband chose what he did, why he couldn’t be honest and talk to me, why he just walked away and never looked back……and I am beginning to be ok with the reality of never having answers…….

    The man I married 18 years ago was a sweet, sensitive, hardworking, wonderful man…but he was also broken, and when brokenness goes unattended it leads to disastrous outcomes……some people hurt themselves in their brokenness….some people hurt others…….   Brokenness must be addressed and “dressed” by the All Mighty Physicians’ hands.

        I will always love my husband in a special way, reserved only for him.  I can love the man he was and be so grateful to him for the son we had together and the years he protected my daughters and me……. But that’s where I leave it……in the past, in the place of “something that once was”……. I try not to carry it into the present or the future.

Forgiveness allows me to daily lay the pain and hurt down and let it go….see my marriage for what it WAS, not for what it IS today. Forgiveness is a choice I have to make every day, sometimes multiple times a day….but it’s up to me, and who I choose to be each day.

Every day is a choice…..who will you “choose” to be? I choose joy, I choose new beginnings, I choose healing and my family, freedom, and possibilities, I choose Jesus and I choose forgiveness ………….