In light of my second installment of "what I wish I knew about mental health" I thought I'd write a little follow-up about where I'm at today in my healing journey.
** T/W mental illness **
In my last two posts, I opened up about some dark thoughts and how I felt during triggers, and I feel the need to explain myself. I'm afraid that there isn't grace for me. Admittedly I have the tendency to think the worst outcome will happen, that I'll be scrutinized for being a bad Christian because I was bitter for a while and wasn't always forgiving, but I'm often proven wrong with the abundant grace people show me. It's humbling and heart-warming. Even though I'm encouraged by seeing the fruit of me sharing my experiences, I cannot put my peace in it, and I can't expect the praise to carry me through the remainder of my healing journey. I must make the choices to go forward, even when I'll inevitably be met with scrutiny. Those choices are to move my focus away from what happened, to how I can learn and forgive now, tomorrow, and the next day.
I can't control what happened to me, but I can control how I respond to it.
The biggest part of my healing process has been learning about forgiveness and its many facets. I don't want to define forgiveness — because dictionaries exist — but I want to show how it's changed my life, how it's actively changing my life. I've never experienced such joy and unbridled grace, but not because I'm the one receiving it. Forgiving others and extending grace is the spice of life, it's our purpose as human beings, a fundamental practice, and so fulfilling. Serving others in this way, we find purpose and meaning in our lives. We find freedom. Forgiveness frees me from the burden of keeping track of the nitty gritty details of my testimony. Honestly, I don't remember a lot of them, partially because trauma amnesia is a thing, but I also don't want to dwell on the details and keep those hurtful memories alive. What is important is despite going through a season that nearly took my life, I emerged with a soft heart, but not without hard work and daily discipline to forgive those who hurt me.
We don't drift towards holiness, so choosing to heal required lots of discipline, daily. I wrestled with my inborn sinful tendencies and had to learn to rise above them. In my effort to forgive my ex-husband and many others in that season, I absolutely battled bitterness, hatred, and anger. And I still do, namely in weak moments or when I work through a trigger. To have learned a lesson doesn't mean one is an expert in applying what's been learned, because it takes practice to be good at making those hard choices.
That's the thing really, to "practice what I preach" entails the inevitability of failure. So yes, while I was working on forgiveness, I often failed and caved into bitterness, but my decision to forgive is still completely valid and my mistakes do not make me any less of a forgiving person. Failure to forgive is a part of the process. To not practice what I preach is to abandon forgiveness all together, and that's absolutely not an option. (There's a reason why the saying isn't "perfect what you preach" because it's unattainable and unrealistic. It also just sounds weird.)
But people don't see those silent battles and daily choices. Only now am I sharing my experiences publicly. This isn't a unique struggle because everyone battles bitterness at one time or another. It's a part of the sin nature we were all born into. Whomever tells you differently is ✨lying✨
At the beginning of my healing journey, I knew forgiveness was the right thing to do, and I should do it because of what's been written in Scripture. I'd be lying if I said my heart wasn't hesitant; I was so hurt and so broken, and desperate for external peace. I wasn't aware of the lie I believed, that forgiveness was excusing actions that hurt me, and that it was an olive branch to my offenders. I can't even begin to describe the relief I felt when I learned that forgiveness is not synonymous with reconciliation or condoning hurtful actions. Instead, it is freeing yourself from carrying the pain your offender has caused you, allowing you to move on and make peace. As the age old saying goes, to withhold forgiveness is like drinking poison with the hopes the other person will die.
There are plenty of opportunities for me to remain bitter, daily. Given the nature of PTSD, I'm consistently reminded of little things regarding my ex-husband and the divorce; it's hard to completely drive out memories of someone you were doing life with. Not every reminder is a trigger, but the reminders do make me angry sometimes. It's difficult to say no to bitterness in those moments. But no amount of good will ever come from me being bitter towards my ex-husband. It isn't like bitter thoughts will somehow end up in him getting my form of justice, or him understanding what I went through or, or, or... It isn't up to me that justice is served or that "he gets his" because it's none of my business. I don't know what he needs in order to change and I'd be a fool to assume I do. It would also be foolish to bank finding my peace and closure on "him getting his" because no form of justice would be satisfying enough; I cannot risk my peace on circumstances I can't control.
There's a lot to be said about the latter, but it all comes down to understanding the importance of placing my peace and closure in something I can control, and something that withstands time and the space in my spirit. I can choose to have closure and peace — to wait for him to act gives him power over my peace. To wait for your offender to offer closure is like handing them your keys and enabling them to change the locks without you ever knowing — where is the peace in that?
Remaining bitter hardens the heart, a state in which it wasn't created to experience. Like a rubber band or dried clay before the firing, hardness is weakness, cracking and brittle. There is no strength found in harboring bitterness. Bitterness is all promise and zero delivery. It keeps us trapped into thinking that holding on to the pain from our offender will result in something fruitful. All it does is deepen the pain, prolong suffering, and weaken us in the process.
Choosing to forgive is a fruitful discipline. It gives you the room to tap into your indwelling peace God gives to us, something wild and beyond our understanding; everlasting and never changing. It brings forth ripe authenticity in the pursuit of joy and of grace for others, but not without making daily choices to think right thoughts and practicing the art of letting go.
I'm not perfect at this, and I never will be. Growing in forgiveness is not progressive like stairsteps, and not quite cyclical like a complete circle, but rather like a horizontal spiral. Through ups and downs, we learn, moving forward in time through the seasons of life, picking up valuable lessons on the way and doing what we can to make good choices, one of those being to forgive, hard as it may be.
Forgiveness is difficult. But living in bitterness is a bigger burden.
So be strengthened. Find peace. Align your heart with your wonderful design. Take the power back and participate in something greater than yourself. Don't let bitterness keep you in chains. I urge you, let go of what we were never made to carry, choose to forgive, and be freed.
~All I could think about when concluding this was the song "Nobody's Perfect" by Hannah Montana, and now the song is stuck in your head. You're welcome.
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