It has taken me a couple to days to follow up on Friday's post. I didn't expect to receive the emails and notes of support from so many people. I guess there are more than I though who follow this blog! Thank you to everyone, I am glad my words and experiences can resonate and in some cases help heal you too.
I have to confess that I do not just sit down and write blindly, I always pray and ask for intercession, sometimes depending on the topic, I pray to a particular person or saint. Last Friday, it was the Blessed Mother who helped me. I will pray for wisdom and guidance and it is like words fill my head and heart, some that are from me, but mostly from a divine intervention. I think I am fairly scholarly, but even I know the limits of my ego and the capacity of my thoughts when I do not ask for help. I have always been this way, growing up, I thought I was schizophrenic and the voices in my head were from other egos...that is a whole other Oprah, one I am sure will make good material for when the time is right!! Seriously though, I did think I was a little off, I never attributed the wisdom and power in my soul to anything supernatural. Could you imagine in junior high if I had walked around and said, "I sometimes think on my own, but when I am not sure, I ask God to talk for me." Those awkward teenage years were tough enough, without being coined, "God Girl" or something like that. Besides, I was not at the time, open enough in my heart to understand that sometimes that was the case. I know we all have had those moments in life when we ask for advice beyond our knowledge and get an answer we know was not previously in our thoughts. That is divine intervention, I just wish it didn't take me over 30 years to accept that and let it guide me in life...again, other Oprah moments that I will share later!
Not only am I going to confess today that I didn't even go a week with daily blogs as promised, (Wednesday was not my fault, I cannot magically power the internet to make it work!) I am also going to confess that I was wrong in my article on Forgiveness.
Ok, Jesus, I can feel you looking over my shoulder in this one...yet, you already know what I am going to say. I need to clarify this, I was not wrong to just forgive my abuser in life, but I was wrong to go so may years and not tell my mother that she was forgiven as well. I guess, I had never really thought about it and it didn't matter, because I never blamed her, but all these years she has wondered if I had. I was at work on Saturday night and read her email, in response to my last blog. Yes, my mom and father (the man who adopted me when I was a teenager) subscribe to my blogs, like faithful parents.
Her words hit me to my core and I was not sure how to respond. Her short question was something that shook my faith completely. Not only within me, but in my relationship with her and God.
"Your blog on forgiveness has struck me very hard. I have always pondered but was afraid to ask..........can you ever forgive me?"
How could she even ask that? Why is it that after almost 20 years, of my confession to her, had we never talked about that? More importantly, how was it that I was so blind, that I never knew she has carried this in her heart. I knew there would always be some sort of guilt, for not knowing or finding out sooner, but forgiveness? I know as a teenager, in my anger at times, I would say hurtful things, but I don't think I ever once blamed her for what someone else did. Yet, I never told her. I never confessed that to her and here we were. The wave of guilt came over me as well. I am her only daughter and I have so many times brought single-handedly, the most joy and pain into her heart. How could I do that? Why would God have ever let me do that to her?
I wanted to call her and let her know that she was wrong, but I was at work and would be for the night. The nice thing about working alone on a Saturday night is that there is a lot of quiet time to pray and think. Well, not exactly quiet as it is a dog kennel, but at least I am not trying to decipher all of their barking...it is a good job for a mom with 4 children...you learn to multi-task and tune out every noise that is not blood curdling!! So there I sat, I reached into my soul to find the answer, but it was so sorrowful that it was blank. I was not feeling guilty about ever telling her, but I was feeling remorse for all the pain it has caused since. Does that make sense? There is a lot of good and bad pain that gets released once you share your secrets with people. Overall, there is nothing that trumps the healing you feel once it is out and you can process it all.
I just sat and prayed to the only one I knew had been in these shoes. The Blessed Mother. I asked her for forgiveness that I had not been open with my mother or had ever told her that she was never at fault. I just assumed she knew. I asked for forgiveness in all of my assumptions and all of the people that were hurt by me telling about the abuse. Not because it was my fault, but again, because I never communicated or listened to them enough to make sure they were OK. Sometimes when you are in the midst of something, it is hard to see that there are other people who are suffering as well. I prayed that their hearts be filled with light and graced with the sanctity of knowing that they are loved just as much as I am. (It has taken me a very long time to accept that I am and was loved by God, probably longer than it did to accept that everyone was. I just had never loved myself enough to add it to the equation of his children. I guess in many senses, I thought I was the exception to the rule of His love).
I remembered a few years back when my oldest son, Andrew was about 2 and a half. I was pregnant with his sister and in a moment of pity, wondering where if this was all there was and if this is what God wanted for me. I was very hormonal and very afraid, I was afraid that I would never do the things I wanted in life. Looking back it was selfish torment, but it was real during the first few years of motherhood. Andrew came out of his room and said, "You know what mommy? I got to choose you!" He gave me a hug and went back to playing like nothing had happened. In reality, my world had shifted and although, I didn't understand what he meant, it made me stop my tears and ask God what it meant. Typical to God fashion, I didn't get an email response, letter in the mail or a phone call, it came a few years later when I least expected it. Even though it was not expected, it was in God's time, He gave me the information when I was ready and could understand it in my soul. That image in time came flooding into my head as I sat there trying to write to my mom.
In that moment, I was filled with hope and my heart just lifted inside of my chest. I began to type back to my mom. It was a divine moment when my fingers were typing the message that the Queen of Peace was dictating. I started by saying, how sorry I was that she has carried that and felt she ever needed to ask that. I wrote, "You are a gift to me and I got to choose you as my mom. Remember, my soul chose to come into this life knowing what was going to happen. You are holding a false sense of guilt that you could have stopped it. You were not supposed to, as hard as that is, you were not supposed to. You have been my rock and you have guided me through so much and I could not ever have imagined I would have done without you." The message from my son a few years ago came into play for her.
I continued to tell her to not ever think she was to blame, this was all part of God's plan and the best thing is that we can be a light for other human beings. I began to see the images of Christ on the day he died. I am not sure if I was being shown it or if my own conscious had brought it up from what it has always imagined happened that day.
"When Christ was dying on the cross, at one point, God had to turn away. Not because he did not love him, but because he loved him so much that it hurt. He knew that it was the only way for mankind to really know his love. Just like Mary said she would be his mother, long before she knew or anyone knew what it would mean. You have always been my Mary, you have had to do the same thing...our past was the only way to the amazing things we will do in this future."
As I was finishing my email to her it was so clear why I needed the Blessed Mother in this time, my mom had walked in similar shoes, although her daughter lived, her soul accepted that she would be my mother long before she had knowledge of what would happen in our lives. I am that kind of mother too, as well as anyone who loves a child. It was not about us understanding the story of Mary, it truly is about us accepting that we are like her and we do have the strength to endure what she did. Many of us have to carry different crosses in our lives. I am blessed that I get to write about it with the hopes that it makes a difference for someone else. In this case, my mother is my Mary, the giver of my life.
Please think about this if you are in similar shoes. It may be years before you can forgive someone who hurts you, and that is ok, just pray on it and ask God to show you how to. But, don't wait years to confess to those who have suffered with you, that their guilt is something they need to forgive themselves of, even it you didn't ever blame them. Because as always, our Father already has...
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