Actually Forgiving Fully

Forgiving is not about saying someone is right, there is a saying I’m not sure of the actual words, only that it states that it’s for the person to release it but it doesn’t erase. As a young girl many neighbours saw my Dad beat, hit and kick me and saw that I was struggling. And unbeknown to everyone I was deaf and in our local church, one Mums and tots day, a church helper told me that if I feel upset and hurt to close my eyes and put my hands over my eyes and ask Jesus to take the pain and hurt away.

For some saw my ‘nipping’ them was a bad thing, it was actually the only way my little friends could communicate with me to get my attention to help me to guess what was being said, I was deaf.

Sometimes in town seeing children of the age I was, I just cannot comprehend how an adult could hurt them, beyond my comprehension it’s just tragic that that was all I knew as normal at that age.

There are many things that I could hold grudges against lots of people, it takes a lot of strength and dignity to forgive and often it is against criminal acts. We can never forget, because it’s important to never repeat the past mistakes and offences, and I have to say that in the current climate of abuse in schools, there is one of many situations, that taught me how forgiveness strengthens the forgiven rather than breed resentments.

In school break time I was practicing reading a speech I had written and I was attacked from behind by a school boy who had sneaked up behind me and assaulted me. His friends were present and laughed at the time and then covered for him claiming I had been making it all up for no reason. The teacher sided with them (it would have been a scandal for the school) and my father said that I had a choice to go to a different school or stay there.

This experience was a big eye opener for me in the sense that I knew that I would never be able to be taken seriously ever and that realisation made me motivated to use my inner strength and look them in the eye. Forgiveness only gives peace to those who can forgive themselves. We must remember to value every moment. When I gave the talk on my subject in front of those students I looked them in the eyes and spoke clearly and confidently and they were never the same with me after that, they could not forgive themselves and so they continued to blame others for anything they did wrong.

Forgiveness is a healer and it is harder to feel bad, than to enjoy feeling good… the next blog I will expand on this.

Just love this by Lizzo the lyrics are so wonderful! Apple Music