Forgiveness Through Releasing The Pain

by Chuntae Nicole

When I asked God to show me what it looked like to have a prosperous soul, He began to show me…me. He put me in front of the mirror and began the journey of showing me my wounds. The wounds of my soul of which I am well acquainted, of which I am so familiar, the wounds of my soul that had been my incubator of pain, which I now had to face. God knew that these wounded places in me masked the person that He created me to be. So, in His infinite wisdom He showed me how to face the pain with Him, forgive and release the people I held hostage and trust that what He made when He made me was in fact good.

We all have heard over the years about forgiveness, and my response to forgiveness, as I am sure yours may have been as well, was based off of whether or not the person deserved it. We analyze and toil over whether the person is remorseful, weighing the circumstances to gain some sense of understanding. Some even try to find a way to empathize or relate to the individual as if to be in that person’s shoes would help. But, forgiveness is not a feeling, it’s a decision. It is a deliberate act of releasing the person that hurt or offended you regardless if the person ever deserves it or apologizes.

My relationship with forgiveness used to be based off how I felt until God began to show me the benefit of releasing the pain. You see we hold on to the pain, because it is what we are use to. We hold on to the pain because we often have not received our due justice. Many of us never get those apologies and some of us don’t get the acknowledgement that what we’ve endured ever happened in the first place. So, there I was face to face with years of sexual abuse, abandonment by my father, and emotionally disconnected from my family. Not knowing how to cope with the feelings of family members waking me up in the middle of the night and undressing me and touching me however they saw fit, not knowing how to cope with an absent father who partied more than he remembered that he had a home, I learned to survive. I survived by going so deep within myself that although my abusers were physically touching me, they couldn’t touch me mentally. I went into this shell and it became a way of life. And as grew older I attracted men that I would cling to hoping they would see my worth and love me but to no avail, they walked away too…just like my dad. So, still in that shell, that fortress that

I built to keep me safe, I lived. All the while perusing through life, I laughed a little, danced a little, but only a little because the space inside the prison walls that I created were only so little.

But, one day I dared to ask God that question, I dared to dream of what my life would look like to have a prosperous soul, and God answered me by showing me this scenario: -- The Prisoner and The Warden --God said to me unforgiveness is like being a warden in a prison. He said the warden’s job is to ensure that the prisoners do their time; ultimately pay for the wrong that they’ve done. In order for the warden to ensure the prisoners do their time, somebody has to keep an eye on the prisoners. The warden is not the one who did wrong, but yet the warden is still in prison because he took the job of making sure the prisoners paid for what they did wrong. The idea of a “bad guy” getting off without penalty seems so wrong. God said to me Chuntae, when you take on my role as the judge and decide that you want to make someone pay for what they’ve done to you, then you have sentenced yourself as well. You, like that warden are choosing to spend your days at the prison when you can choose to be anywhere else. By choice the warden made his life about the prisoners, and God is saying that this is what happens when we do not forgive. When we feel like “they” need to pay for what they did, we intrude into the wrong position. It is not our job to take matters into our own hands.

It was then that I began to understand that forgiveness was for me! Thinking about forgiveness as if it were a gift to my abuser was the wrong perspective. It was a gift to me! It wasn’t that I was letting the guilty go free, it was the fact that I was letting me “the real prisoner” go free. The pain was not hurting them, it was killing me, it was stealing my life, my joy and my peace and robbing me of my future, and all this time I had the power to change it. I have to admit I did feel justified as to why I held on to my pain, but what justification did I have to die in it? I made the decision that I did not want another day..another year to go by still angry and bitter growing more and more numb by the moment; barely being present. I decided that I no longer wanted to be preoccupied with nursing the same old pain. I had determined that my freedom and my future was worth more than someone else’s punishment. So, I released the pain and I got my life back! I got my smile back! I got my voice back! Now don’t get me wrong, releasing the pain may feel like you are losing control, like you’ve been defeated, like all of that suffering that you endured was forgotten or erased, but that’s not the truth. God tells his beloved children that vengeance is His, and that He will repay them. Know that God does not sleep and He is the only one true righteous judge, and

My relationship with forgiveness used to be based off how I felt until God began to show me the benefit of releasing the pain.

whatsoever a person sows, that is what that person shall reap! But that’s God’s job, not ours! We simply have to trust Him and know that there is nothing that we can ever do to make Him stop loving us. Make the declaration with me to live your next chapter free indeed!