Forgiveness

I know a lot about forgiveness: both giving it and receiving it.  I have needed a lot of it in my life and God is good at forgiving even when people are not.  I have had to forgive many people of many things, sometimes quite selfishly because I know how unforgiveness can eat at a soul until a person becomes someone entirely different.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Forgiveness was one of the points in Pastor's sermon this morning, how we should go the extra mile to forgive people, turn the other cheek, don't seek revenge and all that.  Mt 5:38-42  That got me thinking about my Grandpa, which is where this post is going.  Before I can tell you the lesson he taught me about forgiveness, I have to tell you about him.  When I was young, he was the most gentle man I had ever known.  He was the one constant in my life as a child, the one person that I never doubted loved me.  He is one of the two people that I know who this quote describes.  He was love personified.  I lived with Grandma and Grandpa off and on throughout my childhood, totalling 8 years.  That might be more than I lived with my mother.  I would have to do the math and that's not where I want this post to go, so maybe another day.  I would sit with Grandpa while he read the paper, just quietly watching him and absorbing his love.  He was good to me.  When I was 12, I moved back in to their house.  The why is a long complicated story.  Part of it has to do with my sister.  She was in foster care and it had been determined that the case needed to be closed; either by terminating my mother's rights or by the child moving from the state.  It had also been determined that mother was unfit to care for my sister.  The caseworker knew that she was also unfit to care for me but that had not been determined legally so she worked to find a loophole that could protect us both.  Enter Grandma and Grandpa.  It was decided that my sister and I would move in with our grandparents in another state, thereby allowing the case to be closed and protecting us both.  Seemed like a win/win.  Not sure it was for my sister, but the lady had good intentions.  Again, I am a little off track, but a bit of history just seems necessary.  So, we moved back in with Grandma and Grandpa.  This was our third stay with them.  Like I said, I was 12.  When we got there, as usual, I was mute.  Grandpa was used to this, almost expected it, and took great joy when I finally opened up and found my voice again after returning to their home.  Anyway, I was more skittish this time.  I avoided eye contact at all cost.  I startled every time anyone walked into the room or made a noise.  I flinched every time Grandpa tried to touch me.  About two weeks after we got there, before the doctor visits and the realization began to hit of what I had experienced in my time away from them, Grandpa showed a rare moment of frustration when I pulled away from him and said, "What the hell did they do to you?!?"  Of course, I said nothing and flinched at his tone.  When I came home from the doctor a few weeks after that and Grandma explained what was going on, he said, "I WILL NEVER FORGIVE THAT MAN!"  This is where the lesson he taught me about forgiveness comes in.  You see, he began to change.  Slowly at first, and then more drastically.  He became angry and irritated at everyone in the world - except me.  Even in my silence, even in my pain, even with all "that man" had done to me, I knew I didn't want to become the person my beloved Grandpa was becoming.  So, I filed these thoughts away and tried my hardest to forgive.  It was impossible at that time.  I didn't know God and no matter how hard I tried, I was always filled with anger.  Time has a way of mellowing pain and God has a way of healing it.  It would be years before I could truly forgive.  It would take me knowing forgiveness from God to be able to give it to others and even then, I struggled for many more years.  It wasn't until after I had begun to learn to forgive that Grandpa also began to learn.  I went to visit them and he had become so angry all of the time that some of that anger spilled over on me, his beloved princess who needed protecting from all of the evils in the world.  He definitely didn't want to be one of those evils, so he asked me how I could forgive after all that was done to me.  I simply answered that God gave me the grace to forgive.  I never had the privilege to see him after that moment, but I have been told that he became even more loving and more gentle than he was in the beginning, that when he surrendered all of that anger to God, it was replaced with more love than a human heart can hold so he simply gave it all away those last few years of his life.  So, in his unforgiveness, he taught me to forgive and in his forgiveness, he taught me to live. 

Does This Make Me A Freak*?

I remember the first time I knew I was a freak. It was the summer I was 14 and I was on a youth trip. My Grandmother had been hesitant to send me, but I pleaded incessantly and promised her I would be OK. As always happens with events involving youth, we were running late. We had left home that morning on time, but when we arrived in the city where we were staying, it was after midnight. Rather than call the families that were supposed to be hosting us, it was decided we would sleep at the church. When we walked into the building and turned the light on, roaches were everywhere. They were scurrying and trying to scatter, but there were so many of them that they kept running into each other and changing directions. I started to scream and couldn't stop. It wasn't about the moment. It was that the roaches brought to the forefront of my mind a different moment. A moment from when I was 11 or 12. I had not faced that memory since forming it. Nothing could convince my mind or my body that I was 14 and safe. A boy that was new to the youth group kept telling me to focus on him and kept reminding me that I was safe and it was just bugs. His parents were foster parents and he had seen them calm children down in the same way for most of his life. Even when I was able to stop screaming, I couldn't speak or even move. I was frozen to the spot. Someone laid out my sleeping bag and walked me over to it. I just sat there, not moving, but watching everything. When everyone was asleep, I tiptoed to the bathroom and locked the door. I sat in there all night with the light on just staring at the door. Since then, I have learned to handle better those moments when I am bombarded with the past. Most of the time, I am able to stay focused on the moment that is now. I seldom scream or freeze. Most people who know me now don't even know. Now, I am only a freak on the inside.

*Freak = having PTSD & DID. I just didn't know it at the time. Not sure knowing it now helps, but I guess it is better than thinking of myself as a freak.

I Didn't Lose My Words

I just didn't have anything to say.  Now I do.

Words

I am losing my voice. I have a cold and everything comes out as a whisper; every word is a struggle. This shouldn't be a big deal, but it is. When I was little and life would get really stressful, I would stop talking. Not by choice. Rather, my voice just wouldn't work. And after a while, I would lose my words. I would stop thinking in words. Then, I would go live with my grandparents and it would take months or sometimes years before I could whisper again. And then finally speak normally.

Once, at age 12, I got mad at mother and refused to speak to her. I didn't intend to stop speaking completely. I just intended to stop speaking to mother. I quit speaking altogether and it was a full two years before I could speak again. That is when I realized two things. This inability to speak would always be with me to some extent and I could not control it.

Life is stress right now. There is all of this that I put here, that I don't want my kids to see or know and there is all of life that is happening now. Both are stress in overwhelming proportions. This is not usually a big deal. I have learned that if I sense that I am losing my words, I can force them out and prevent the muteness. But I cannot speak because of the hoarseness in my throat. And I had already been forcing myself to speak because of the stress. I am scared I am going to lose my words, my ability to speak, my lifeline to the world.