A Life for a Life!

"Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. " Martin Luther King, Jr.  

A life for a life  - I 've been watching the Casey Anthony trial..it's made me think about the people who hurt me....who did things that caused me to slip so far down into darkness that all I wanted....was to let go.....and let the darkness have its way.  

For a long time I hated those people....I wanted them to suffer....and feel the burn like I did.

Hate consumed me. It caused me turn on myself...punishing myself for what they had done.  

It took me a long time to realize.....hating them hurt me.....not them. It kept me locked in darkness.... punching the air....and slipping further down.

The touch of His gentleness made the difference. It showed me.....love, kindness, forgiveness frees in ways that nothing else can. I knew force, threats, fear....this was different. Kindness softened my heart...gentleness quieted the rage...love dissolved the hate.

A life for a life -  I didn't get what I deserved. Instead...I was shown mercy and given a chance to live free. 
A life for a life  - I don't want those who hurt me to die.....I just don't want them to ever hurt anyone else. And as long as they have breath....there's a chance they might even turn their lives around. 
A life for a life - His for mine.....gave me the freedom I desperately wanted. 
A life for a life - it's already been done

Forgiving Myself

"When you forgive, you're not doing God a favor, you are giving yourself the gift of freedom." Joyce Meyer

I'm not sure why it was so hard....why I struggled so much to forgive myself.  It was easier to forgive my parents who hurt me....and the rapist who held me and wouldn't let me go....then it was to forgive myself.

Maybe it was the lies I had been told that felt so much like truth.  Bad....worthless....garbage. I know now....they were what kept me stuck in a cycle of pain, shame and fear. 

Forgiveness -  I believed I deserved to be punished for what happened - I believed it was my fault....I was to blame. Letting myself off the hook didn't come easy. 

We rented an older movie...The Mission. In it a mercenary accidentally killed his brother. His guilt wouldn't let him forgive himself...even when the priest came...told him he was forgiven...he still couldn't accept it. 

He tied a heavy sack on his back...a form of punishment and carried it everywhere he went. He was able to finally let it go when the people's love who he had previously hunted broke through his shame and guilt. Their love and acceptance gave him what he needed to forgive himself and let go of that 'burden' on his back.  

Forgiveness: 
-it's what helped release me from the darkness that consumed my life.
-it was an act of kindness towards myself. 
-it's was a process not a one-shot deal.
-I needed to say the words out loud....to actually hear them. 
-to let go of self-hate and anger I needed to forgive myself.

Forgiving myself was like turning a light on in the dark...it was the key that turned the lock.....and brought a freedom I hadn't known before.  I had held myself to an impossible standard...Forgiveness helped me realize I was just human and doing the best I could...Forgiveness....a true gift of freedom.

Trust

"Two things scare me. The first is getting hurt. But that's not nearly as scary as the second, which is losing." Lance Armstrong
 
A friend hurt me. She hurt me really bad.She lied to me, told me things that weren't true - hooked me in emotionally - told me things that sounded right - told me what my heart wanted to believe. Another friend told me - don't trust what she's saying - I thought that friend was wrong; she didn't know her like I did. I thought I knew better.

I should have listened but I lived on her words - I trusted. Something in me needed to believe.

I teach my girls to listen to their gut - to trust their inner sense - to be in tune with that inner feeling of something being right or wrong in spite of what they physically see - I teach my kids - but I still can't figure it out all the time. I feel that check  - that hesitation, yet I move forward anyways.

Trust - not everyone is trustworthy. I want to believe they are.
Trust - when I lived on the street, when I fought through crazy situations I trusted people who hurt me - I wanted to believe they were honest - that their words were true. I wanted to believe that so badly I ignored that gut feeling as being nothing.  But when they hurt me, I hurt myself. Their lies cut deep - their actions stirred all the self-hatred - It caused me to lash out at myself - cutting, throwing up, shooting up. Their actions fueled my self-hatred -  intensifying it until it had a life of its own.

I had always thought it was me who was wrong, - I had always thought it was me who made them lie and hurt me. And I hated myself for trusting them, for believing the sweetness of their words......the kindness of their actions - never realizing there was a cost to pay.

I went running in the woods today - to release that build up of self-hatred - Then I reached out to that friend. I don't want to run. I really want to believe the best.....Misunderstandings - silence - forgiveness.

Forgiveness

"Peace is not possible without forgiveness" Naomi Drew

When God touched me I knew I had to forgive those people who hurt me. I thought it wouldn't be so hard to forgive my parents. I forgave them a gizillion times. No matter what they said, no matter what they did - no matter how awful they treated me - I forgave them. At least I thought I had forgiven them. I think now I just minimized the things they did and made excuses for them.

I thought of the judges, the police, the "professionals" who locked me up, over medicated me, tied me down - did what they wanted. I hated them even more than I hated my parents. I forgave them. Then I thought of what they did and I hated them again. When I remembered the things they did, I wanted to hurt myself. Take the anger and hatred out on me. The hatred made me crazy. I didn't want to hold onto the hate so I forgave them again and again and again. I"m still doing that.

The rapist was even harder to forgive. He hadn't just hurt me. I found out he had hurt kids. Somehow I could forgive him for what he did to me but not for what he did to the kids. When I heard that his son killed himself and what he had done to the boy - I hated him. I wanted to see him punished. And I hated the boy's mother for not protecting him. I didn't want to forgive. I'm working on it.

The hardest to forgive though was myself. I hated me more than I hated everyone else. I hated myself so much I wanted to destroy me. That's why for a long time I couldn't stop hurting myself. Even sometimes now when I'm tired, frustrated or impatient about something - I want to hurt myself. I won't though. I run instead. Or write. The intensity of the feelings overwhelms me.

Forgiveness isn't so easy. I remember how much God forgave me. When He did, the peace and joy I felt were amazing. Like being released from prison. Walking free. Forgiveness. I want to keep on trying to make forgiveness a way of living because I want peace in my life. And I want others to know peace too.