I was fifteen and a half, but my body ached like I was ninety. I kept playing the day’s horrid unfolding over and over in my mind as I looked up at the sky, searching for God. Where had He been? Why had He let this happen to me? I was a good girl. My heart thumped with an intensity that made it difficult to breathe. Ice filled my veins but was no contest for the pain that felt like fire against my flesh. Tears flowed freely down my cheeks. Suddenly, a thousand stars bumped against each other forming a jeweled crown on the night with one message. One day I will tell my story.
And so begins my book, Coming To Forgiveness.
It’s been almost fifty years since that fateful day in February, when, writhing in pain, I looked up at the stars and knew I would one day write this story. What I didn’t know was that I would first be required to rid myself of bitterness, revenge, victimization, and guilt before I could put one word to paper. I knew that another angry story served no benefit to our human kind. I wanted to write a story of hope, healing, love, and redemption.
As the years tumbled forward, I realized my only desire was to feel worthy, and it became clearer that my life’s journey has always been about forgiveness. Forgiveness without conditional ifs, buts, excuses, or buckets of blame. It has become my sacred circle work.
I have come full circle to this place of forgiveness. For a very long time, I blamed myself, ridiculed myself, got mad at myself, hated myself, tried to kill myself, and when I wasn’t doing that, I pointed my finger at others, mostly my parents. In the end, I found the finger pointed at me. I’m now in the practice of going back through my life to ask anyone I wronged to “please forgive me.” It’s so freeing because I’ve found forgiveness is not just words I say casually, forgiveness is an embodiment in my soul.
Forgiveness is a way of being that I accept as a gift that flows through me from God to you. We’re never too old to learn and we’re never so complete that we can’t forgive. Just think how our world would be if this were our daily practice!!
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