Journey of Forgiveness

It's unbelievable how many people I've met who have been in relationships where they've given themselves away to someone who took everything he or she wanted and left. I think it's gotten so easy, in our culture that romanticizes everything, to believe that if we give a piece of ourselves away, we'll get something in return. We want to believe that the return on our emotional investment is going to be a fulfilling relationship, albeit a physical one, and we're going to live "happily ever after" because that's the way it's supposed to happen. Right?

What we don't see in the beginning, when we're rushing headlong into the seduction of a romantic relationship, is that all of the things we're so quick to give away are the things we're supposed to be holding onto; they are those things we're supposed to be saving for the one that is meant to receive them.

I remember my first "serious" relationship. There were "I love yous" and plans for the future. There were anniversary celebrations and gifts. Things a good relationship is supposed to have. The only problem was that I was 13, he was 16, and I was diving in with both feet into something I knew nothing about. I don't imply here that this serious relationship was a fulfilling and meaningful relationship. I merely mean to say that we were "serious" about each other. I was devastated when we broke off the relationship because so much of me was poured into it. I would even dare to say all of me was poured into that relationship. I honestly didn't know what to do next.

When the chance came to relive that relationship some years later, I again jumped in with both feet not knowing what I was doing. I would equate it to jumping into a pool blindfolded not knowing which end of the pool you're jumping into. What I thought was the deep end... wasn't. It wasn't a deep and wonderful sharing of our hearts and minds; there was no planning for the future. It was four years of not knowing which end was up. It was four years of being tied to someone who wasn't tied to me. I gave myself fully to someone who had no intention of giving any part of himself to me, and the only return I got on my investment were emotional scars, a new and unimproved opinion of myself, and a twisted sense of searching for a relationship with men I knew were going to hurt me.

The salt in the gaping wound was that he got married, but I didn't. Even after he was married, he told me if things had been different, he would have married me. Even years later, those words haunted me stealing any hope I had that the gift of marriage was anything I'd ever know.

What kept eating at me for all those years was that I knew I was doing exactly what my mother had always taught me not to do. I was pretty good at hiding it from her, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I was going to have to come clean. I never wanted to tell her, to confess to her that I had become what she had tried to keep me from. I didn't want to tell her that I had looked her in the eye hundreds of times over those years and lied to her. The fear of her disappointment kept me from telling her the truth. The years of keeping that time in my life secret kept me in bondage to it. I was certain that my mistakes were the cause of my prolonged singleness, and I wore my singleness like a disease. I shook my fist at God because I hadn't married, but then I always gave him the permission to keep me that way because I had so willingly made mistakes.

About two years ago, something happened that finally began to close the gaping wound I'd been living with for so long. I had written on a piece of paper five "giants" that I feared I couldn't conquer as part of a Bible study lesson my mother, of all people, had taught on the Israelites crossing over the Jordan into the Promised Land. The Israelites were afraid because there were giants in the land that God had given to them, the land that they now were supposed to claim as their inheritance. She asked us to write down five giants we were dealing with that we needed God to conquer in our lives. I wrote down my first one: sexual sin. I shuddered at the sight of it. I wrote others down that I don't remember now, but I buried that piece of paper in my purse in hopes of hiding it once more from my mother.

On occasion, I get in purging moods, and I empty all the contents of my purse and only return what is absolutely necessary. I found that piece of paper and immediately put it back in my purse, so I thought. I saw it on the desk at home, and I remember thinking, "I better move this, so mom doesn't find it."

A few days later, mom asked me if there was something we needed to talk about. Words you never want to hear a parent say because usually means confession of some kind is inevitable.
My mind raced wondering what she was talking about, and then she showed me the piece of paper that bore my handwriting and those words "sexual sin." At first, I said that it was a mind issue. She pressed on. We left the house and sat in my car in the parking lot of a nearby grocery store. She asked me again. The fear I felt made my heart race. I didn't want to look at her. I didn't want to open my mouth, but it was like I was compelled. It poured out. Every detail that had brought me shame upon every remembrance of it. I couldn't stop.

I felt like I should duck and run for cover from the wrath that was going to be poured out on me for the things I'd done, the wrath I deserved. The shocking thing was, though, I saw the tears in her eyes that were flowing like those in my own eyes. She was hurt... BUT...she embraced me. She said things like, "I'm so sorry" and "Why didn't you tell me before?". There was no judgement. There was no condemning, all those things I wholly deserved an had feared for so many years. We cried there for a few minutes and went home.

That following Sunday, after church, she took me to the place I'd made a commitment, as an 8th grader, to remain pure until the day I married. The day I promised to give myself only to my husband. I stood there now, the church empty, with a lump in my throat thinking of all the ways I had broken that promise and spit in the face of that commitment. It was overwhelming.

She hadn't brought me there, though, to mourn over my past. She'd brought me there to start over. There we stood, in the same aisle where we'd stood so many years before, she took my hands, and I renewed the promise I made. Then, she walked me to the altar, the one I'd gone to as a child to give my heart to Jesus, and we had the Lord's Supper together as a symbol of the forgiveness I'd already experienced from God and the forgiveness she was showing me now. It was the most tangible display of God's forgiveness I'd ever experienced.

After that day, the message I kept getting from the Lord was that of redemption over and over again. Understand I am not perfect, and it's been a difficult journey to that place of truly realizing that my worth has nothing to do with my past or who was in it. The times I have thought I was past it, the times I let my guard down, have been the times I have fallen flat on my face. God's grace, though, still permeates the darkness, and He continues to wash off the dirt and set me right again.

I know there are some who have felt the same torment and shame of their own mistakes. I'd love to show you how God's forgiveness can take that away, but more than anything, I'd love to walk this journey of redemption with you.