Thank you for your openness it is true to forgive but we need time to work through the scars abuse brings I pray that God will bring you good spiritual friends to help you along
This is so good and so insightful. Before I became a Christian, the hardest thing for me was to forgive my dad. I almost did not become a Christian as a result. Then a wise soul explained to me that forgiveness is a process with many ups and downs, and that all I needed to do was decide I wanted to forgive. That was so freeing. It took me another few years before I could fully forgive, and the freedom I felt from not being forced to forgive quickly was so helpful.
Thank you. You are right, and your friend was indeed wise.
I’ve been aware for a long time that forgiveness is a process; it’s just that, when I finally began to realize it many years ago, I believed I had already gone through that process, because the trauma had been long buried by then, if that makes sense. On the surface, I felt like I was ok, but the truth was, I was no longer in touch with my deepest feelings. Spiritual bypassing.
I eventually had some great help processing that stuff, and learned how to stay better in touch with my emotions. But the pain I still wrestle with is the way church people treated me when I was in crisis (prior to receiving that help), when all of that spiritual bypassing I had learned IN CHURCH finally caught up to me, and the difference in how they behaved towards me even after that crisis was over. I no longer felt safe around them. They were unapproachable. And it still hurts because I walked away without it being resolved.
And now when I hear Christians talk simplistically about forgiveness like it’s “just a decision,” it makes my blood boil.
I’m still seeking God, but I don’t even want to go to any church now. Please pray for me, because I don’t want to remain stuck.
This was so good and everything I feel! I was in icoc and I was abused as a child and the way the church taught us to suck it up was so harmful. We’re u in icoc
Hi Diane. Yes, I was in the ICOC for over 30 years.
Thank you for reading and responding. I agree with you. Overall, they have a horribly callous, dismissive, “suck it up and get over it” attitude about trauma. Some of the people are trauma-aware, but very few are trauma-informed, yet often have loud, ignorant opinions about it. I also believe there are many who had childhood trauma and believe themselves to be “healed,” but are really in denial, and try to force that denial on others. Which basically re-traumatizes those people.
Forgive & Forget - tough one, actually you're only 'required' to forgive - you may actually be required NOT to forget. If someone has hurt you then you are required to enact safeguarding measures to prevent future hurt from that person and to avoid situations that can result in being hurt again, this isn't the same thing as 'keeping records of wrongs' where one might look to act without charity towards someone due to past actions.
Ultimately we're all to show love by willing the other person (who hurt us) to be in union with God and go to heaven, not to wish ill upon them - we don't actually have to even 'like' them, but we do have to love them.
Now I say "only required to forgive" as it that's some easy thing - it's not, it took 20-years for me to forgive the ICoC. And while I didn't really hold any special ill will towards anyone in particular, I did resent their ways, butchery of scripture and what they tried to do to me and my wife and our future. It is what it is, but it stemmed from poor doctrine which they were trying to enact faithfully if that makes sense...
Anyway you mentioned making forgiveness a condition for Baptism and Baptism a condition for salvation. The latter is true under normal circumstances, it is the way that Jesus makes available for anyone to join him in covenant and accept his redemptive grace. However he can save anyone he likes and at any time, he is God and God is not bound by Baptism, he can confer salvation to anyone such as Cornelius’s household in Acts 10 at any time and ahead of even Baptism.
Your former point of the ICoC "church" requiring forgiveness as a condition for Baptism. This is a horrendous take on what Baptism is and demands a perfect psychological state from the new aspirant Christian, it's simply not a requirement. Full forgiveness between the Christian and the one(s) who wronged them could take many years of sanctification of the Holy Spirit to achieve. God judges the person for walking the path earnestly and Baptism is the beginning of the path not the end, so to demand perfect forgiveness only binds a heavy burden and opens the door for one to doubt their own salvation at a later date - one only need to have an earnest heart when receiving Baptism, nothing more.
Thank you for sharing your story Lori, May the Lord bless you and keep you; make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; turn his face toward you and give you peace.
There were soooo many things that I struggled with, that other people would smile and say things like, “just have faith!” or “it’s just a decision!” when it was much more than just a simple decision for me.
I really thought I had forgiven my parents and people in my past a long time ago. I was influenced by other young people who were eager to baptize and believed themselves to be “competent to counsel” me on how to heal and move on. They were not. They were, however, very insistent that my heart had to be “just right” before I could be baptized, and if I wasn’t baptized, I was destined for hell. I came looking for Jesus and really wanting to know God, but they used fear to motivate me to do things I wasn’t ready for yet. That was a pattern that continued for years, and I submitted to it because it was familiar. My abusive parents had motivated me with fear also.
30 years later when I had a breakdown because of repressed trauma, church people kicked me to the curb. And every time the hurt of that resurfaces, I have to let it go and try to forgive again, so it doesn’t tear me up inside.
I often think we have a really hard time with the concept of forgiveness because of entanglements and we are often thinking "but what about the person that hurt me?"
Understand that I am autistic, so while I do have emotions, they are often complicatedly different from non-neurodivergent people, AND I come from an extremely traumatic past. So I wrestled with a lot of this myself. I thought I forgave people, only to find I did not later on.
I have since had a lot of teaching/training/whatever you want to call it. I am at a lot of peace these days. A couple of definitions that I might not get exactly right, in my hope to just respond and not go look through my volumes of notebooks, go something like this:
Forgiveness means to let a person free of trying to go back and change what has already happened; of making things different in the past.
Forgiveness is surrendering the hope of a different yesterday.
This DOES NOT mean we abandon boundaries in the now. Because that is where healing is still taking place. I can forgive as the statement above line out, BUT, I still will need to rebuild trust and vulnerability, and the like. You do NOT get to have access to my inner being just because I forgave you. AND NO ONE gets to demand this of me. No one else stands in God's place. I will work to get there, but there is a process and I will commit to it. And YOU will wait your turn. Every violation that you commit between now and then just sets us back as you show you do not want a shared relationship but rather an imbalanced one. Boundaries. I have severed those relationships that could not live by this. Because clearly they did not want a Godly relationship that relied on Knowing ME intimately but rather one in which they could hold some sort of power dynamic over me. This isn't biblical. This isn't the body of Christ (1 Cor) nor healthy for me to grow in my knowledge of Him. It was a horrible distraction the only drew me away from Him.
I have also taken to reminding myself a lot of Christ's words on the Cross: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do". This gives me a lot of peace, and it often allows me to feel much softer towards people that do the worst of things, with what I can see that they 1) believe to be good intentions, or 2) like my abusive family members, didn't know any better and had no knowledge of God.
Bottom line, I find it is much easier these days to practice forbearance for a lot of things than to even need to practice forgiveness. I have forgiven my parents, and I have forgiven those from the church that hurt me greatly. But as I said, I can see where each of them didn't understand what they were doing and they can't go back in time to 'fix' it. And I am now someone that can comfort those who have been hurt having survived so much. But I also maintain very strict boundaries with all of them who don't recognize what they did and are unwilling to make the efforts to change. And will continue to do so.
As anyone with autism or similar conditions knows, my mind has replayed my response over and over again.
Please accept my apologies if it came across as not truly appreciative of Lori's posting. I had meant to offer the things I have learned, but I can see where it could be taken as less than compassionate. Thank you very much for your story Lori, and I do feel deeply for your journey and sorry for all you have had to endure. As well, I applaud you for the journey you are on now and for sharing it with others.
No need to apologize, William. Sorry I have been slow to respond, but it was a lot to take in and I just haven’t had a chance to do so.
My son is diagnosed with autism, and I often wonder if I may be on the spectrum as well, but I’ve never been tested. Or maybe it’s just complex PTSD for me, but it still takes me a while to process things. And I do that “replaying what I said” thing all the time too, second-guessing whether or not what I said was OK.
I appreciate that reminder about forgiveness… I’ve heard that before too… Giving up hope of a better past.
I think what’s hardest for me, is getting over the hurt of realizing I devoted most of my life to a system of people that did not have my back when I really needed them to.
"I think what’s hardest for me, is getting over the hurt of realizing I devoted most of my life to a system of people that did not have my back when I really needed them to."
UGH!!! I hear this one in my soul. Dedicated soooo much to a people and a system only to be cast aside and abandoned. AND NOW, I have found a different group that believes and wants the things I have always preached but I am spent and broken physically and cannot do what I once did. It is hard some days for me to reconcile this. What I do look at in many of these cases is I did plant seeds that I may never see grow. I have lived a life of impact that every so often, I get a glimpse of. People that have moved away and kids that got out. You have to seek, HUNT, the good stuff.
p.s. You know where to reach me should you want any parenting advice. We've raised two autistic sons now. One with advanced Aspergers and on Medicaid, and one whose more like me (some cant' even tell - until you over stimulate us).
Thanks for that offer. Our children are both grown now. Our son is our youngest, and he is 24. We could have used more advice 10-15 years ago that was appropriate for him as a neurodivergent child, but the church was not equipped for that, although they had a lot of opinions on what they thought we should do. It was not helpful. In retrospect, I see that we received and followed a lot of horrible advice, and things did not go well. In fact, things became nightmarish in his late teens and early 20s. By the grace of God, he’s doing well now. It sounds like he’s a lot like you as far as where he falls on the spectrum.
I’m sorry for what you experienced in the church also.
that's kind of the tipping point for why I gave up trying to help change the culture there. My kids. They saw the toll it took on me, how people were treating me, and they were losing faith in God over it. My youngest is still very anti-church, agnostic. All because of the church. My oldest still became a Christian in spite of it. But yeah, I stood up strong against the church and their advice regarding my children and parenting. Ran the kids ministry for 7 years, and then pre-teen/teen ministry for a short while. Special needs kids, kids from broken family, adopted/foster kids, kids with trauma backgrounds, all excelled with me. I always saw that things didn't fit in boxes lol. I still find it funny they never kicked me out. That it took 25 years for me to finally walk away instead, after holding nearly every leadership position there was in that fellowship. I was always the guy going against the grain.
Thank you for your openness it is true to forgive but we need time to work through the scars abuse brings I pray that God will bring you good spiritual friends to help you along
Thank you. I need those prayers!
This is so good and so insightful. Before I became a Christian, the hardest thing for me was to forgive my dad. I almost did not become a Christian as a result. Then a wise soul explained to me that forgiveness is a process with many ups and downs, and that all I needed to do was decide I wanted to forgive. That was so freeing. It took me another few years before I could fully forgive, and the freedom I felt from not being forced to forgive quickly was so helpful.
Thank you. You are right, and your friend was indeed wise.
I’ve been aware for a long time that forgiveness is a process; it’s just that, when I finally began to realize it many years ago, I believed I had already gone through that process, because the trauma had been long buried by then, if that makes sense. On the surface, I felt like I was ok, but the truth was, I was no longer in touch with my deepest feelings. Spiritual bypassing.
I eventually had some great help processing that stuff, and learned how to stay better in touch with my emotions. But the pain I still wrestle with is the way church people treated me when I was in crisis (prior to receiving that help), when all of that spiritual bypassing I had learned IN CHURCH finally caught up to me, and the difference in how they behaved towards me even after that crisis was over. I no longer felt safe around them. They were unapproachable. And it still hurts because I walked away without it being resolved.
And now when I hear Christians talk simplistically about forgiveness like it’s “just a decision,” it makes my blood boil.
I’m still seeking God, but I don’t even want to go to any church now. Please pray for me, because I don’t want to remain stuck.
Sending you much love. You write so well!
It is so much more than a 'decision'. Ugh, I detest platitudes in religion
This was so good and everything I feel! I was in icoc and I was abused as a child and the way the church taught us to suck it up was so harmful. We’re u in icoc
Hi Diane. Yes, I was in the ICOC for over 30 years.
Thank you for reading and responding. I agree with you. Overall, they have a horribly callous, dismissive, “suck it up and get over it” attitude about trauma. Some of the people are trauma-aware, but very few are trauma-informed, yet often have loud, ignorant opinions about it. I also believe there are many who had childhood trauma and believe themselves to be “healed,” but are really in denial, and try to force that denial on others. Which basically re-traumatizes those people.
I was in Boston for 32 years where were you?
Forgive & Forget - tough one, actually you're only 'required' to forgive - you may actually be required NOT to forget. If someone has hurt you then you are required to enact safeguarding measures to prevent future hurt from that person and to avoid situations that can result in being hurt again, this isn't the same thing as 'keeping records of wrongs' where one might look to act without charity towards someone due to past actions.
Ultimately we're all to show love by willing the other person (who hurt us) to be in union with God and go to heaven, not to wish ill upon them - we don't actually have to even 'like' them, but we do have to love them.
Now I say "only required to forgive" as it that's some easy thing - it's not, it took 20-years for me to forgive the ICoC. And while I didn't really hold any special ill will towards anyone in particular, I did resent their ways, butchery of scripture and what they tried to do to me and my wife and our future. It is what it is, but it stemmed from poor doctrine which they were trying to enact faithfully if that makes sense...
Anyway you mentioned making forgiveness a condition for Baptism and Baptism a condition for salvation. The latter is true under normal circumstances, it is the way that Jesus makes available for anyone to join him in covenant and accept his redemptive grace. However he can save anyone he likes and at any time, he is God and God is not bound by Baptism, he can confer salvation to anyone such as Cornelius’s household in Acts 10 at any time and ahead of even Baptism.
Your former point of the ICoC "church" requiring forgiveness as a condition for Baptism. This is a horrendous take on what Baptism is and demands a perfect psychological state from the new aspirant Christian, it's simply not a requirement. Full forgiveness between the Christian and the one(s) who wronged them could take many years of sanctification of the Holy Spirit to achieve. God judges the person for walking the path earnestly and Baptism is the beginning of the path not the end, so to demand perfect forgiveness only binds a heavy burden and opens the door for one to doubt their own salvation at a later date - one only need to have an earnest heart when receiving Baptism, nothing more.
Thank you for sharing your story Lori, May the Lord bless you and keep you; make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; turn his face toward you and give you peace.
I appreciate your comments, Frank.
There were soooo many things that I struggled with, that other people would smile and say things like, “just have faith!” or “it’s just a decision!” when it was much more than just a simple decision for me.
I really thought I had forgiven my parents and people in my past a long time ago. I was influenced by other young people who were eager to baptize and believed themselves to be “competent to counsel” me on how to heal and move on. They were not. They were, however, very insistent that my heart had to be “just right” before I could be baptized, and if I wasn’t baptized, I was destined for hell. I came looking for Jesus and really wanting to know God, but they used fear to motivate me to do things I wasn’t ready for yet. That was a pattern that continued for years, and I submitted to it because it was familiar. My abusive parents had motivated me with fear also.
30 years later when I had a breakdown because of repressed trauma, church people kicked me to the curb. And every time the hurt of that resurfaces, I have to let it go and try to forgive again, so it doesn’t tear me up inside.
Thank you for reading and commenting!
I often think we have a really hard time with the concept of forgiveness because of entanglements and we are often thinking "but what about the person that hurt me?"
Understand that I am autistic, so while I do have emotions, they are often complicatedly different from non-neurodivergent people, AND I come from an extremely traumatic past. So I wrestled with a lot of this myself. I thought I forgave people, only to find I did not later on.
I have since had a lot of teaching/training/whatever you want to call it. I am at a lot of peace these days. A couple of definitions that I might not get exactly right, in my hope to just respond and not go look through my volumes of notebooks, go something like this:
Forgiveness means to let a person free of trying to go back and change what has already happened; of making things different in the past.
Forgiveness is surrendering the hope of a different yesterday.
This DOES NOT mean we abandon boundaries in the now. Because that is where healing is still taking place. I can forgive as the statement above line out, BUT, I still will need to rebuild trust and vulnerability, and the like. You do NOT get to have access to my inner being just because I forgave you. AND NO ONE gets to demand this of me. No one else stands in God's place. I will work to get there, but there is a process and I will commit to it. And YOU will wait your turn. Every violation that you commit between now and then just sets us back as you show you do not want a shared relationship but rather an imbalanced one. Boundaries. I have severed those relationships that could not live by this. Because clearly they did not want a Godly relationship that relied on Knowing ME intimately but rather one in which they could hold some sort of power dynamic over me. This isn't biblical. This isn't the body of Christ (1 Cor) nor healthy for me to grow in my knowledge of Him. It was a horrible distraction the only drew me away from Him.
I have also taken to reminding myself a lot of Christ's words on the Cross: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do". This gives me a lot of peace, and it often allows me to feel much softer towards people that do the worst of things, with what I can see that they 1) believe to be good intentions, or 2) like my abusive family members, didn't know any better and had no knowledge of God.
Bottom line, I find it is much easier these days to practice forbearance for a lot of things than to even need to practice forgiveness. I have forgiven my parents, and I have forgiven those from the church that hurt me greatly. But as I said, I can see where each of them didn't understand what they were doing and they can't go back in time to 'fix' it. And I am now someone that can comfort those who have been hurt having survived so much. But I also maintain very strict boundaries with all of them who don't recognize what they did and are unwilling to make the efforts to change. And will continue to do so.
Hope this helps some of you
As anyone with autism or similar conditions knows, my mind has replayed my response over and over again.
Please accept my apologies if it came across as not truly appreciative of Lori's posting. I had meant to offer the things I have learned, but I can see where it could be taken as less than compassionate. Thank you very much for your story Lori, and I do feel deeply for your journey and sorry for all you have had to endure. As well, I applaud you for the journey you are on now and for sharing it with others.
No need to apologize, William. Sorry I have been slow to respond, but it was a lot to take in and I just haven’t had a chance to do so.
My son is diagnosed with autism, and I often wonder if I may be on the spectrum as well, but I’ve never been tested. Or maybe it’s just complex PTSD for me, but it still takes me a while to process things. And I do that “replaying what I said” thing all the time too, second-guessing whether or not what I said was OK.
I appreciate that reminder about forgiveness… I’ve heard that before too… Giving up hope of a better past.
I think what’s hardest for me, is getting over the hurt of realizing I devoted most of my life to a system of people that did not have my back when I really needed them to.
I always appreciate your comments!
"I think what’s hardest for me, is getting over the hurt of realizing I devoted most of my life to a system of people that did not have my back when I really needed them to."
UGH!!! I hear this one in my soul. Dedicated soooo much to a people and a system only to be cast aside and abandoned. AND NOW, I have found a different group that believes and wants the things I have always preached but I am spent and broken physically and cannot do what I once did. It is hard some days for me to reconcile this. What I do look at in many of these cases is I did plant seeds that I may never see grow. I have lived a life of impact that every so often, I get a glimpse of. People that have moved away and kids that got out. You have to seek, HUNT, the good stuff.
p.s. You know where to reach me should you want any parenting advice. We've raised two autistic sons now. One with advanced Aspergers and on Medicaid, and one whose more like me (some cant' even tell - until you over stimulate us).
Thanks for that offer. Our children are both grown now. Our son is our youngest, and he is 24. We could have used more advice 10-15 years ago that was appropriate for him as a neurodivergent child, but the church was not equipped for that, although they had a lot of opinions on what they thought we should do. It was not helpful. In retrospect, I see that we received and followed a lot of horrible advice, and things did not go well. In fact, things became nightmarish in his late teens and early 20s. By the grace of God, he’s doing well now. It sounds like he’s a lot like you as far as where he falls on the spectrum.
I’m sorry for what you experienced in the church also.
that's kind of the tipping point for why I gave up trying to help change the culture there. My kids. They saw the toll it took on me, how people were treating me, and they were losing faith in God over it. My youngest is still very anti-church, agnostic. All because of the church. My oldest still became a Christian in spite of it. But yeah, I stood up strong against the church and their advice regarding my children and parenting. Ran the kids ministry for 7 years, and then pre-teen/teen ministry for a short while. Special needs kids, kids from broken family, adopted/foster kids, kids with trauma backgrounds, all excelled with me. I always saw that things didn't fit in boxes lol. I still find it funny they never kicked me out. That it took 25 years for me to finally walk away instead, after holding nearly every leadership position there was in that fellowship. I was always the guy going against the grain.