This weekend I took a giant risk in faith. Jesus commands me to confront someone who has sinned against me. To be truthful with them about my feelings and to release my resentment and hurt to Him. Since I don’t have years of experience obeying this truth, it is hard for me to do this. Each time I do this I die to my shame and codependency and I grow in my dependency on Christ. However obeying this command in my relationship with my parents, is in a league all its own in terms of level of difficulty.
Since I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse I have always, since I can remember, felt like I was bad. I have always felt different than others, defective and uniquely sinful. Last year I talked to my mom about the sexual abuse and she has told me that she can remember a very clear change in my personality around the time of the abuse. “OK…that’s sad,” I thought to myself.
I don’t remember ever being close to my dad so this week when I bared my soul to him and my mom, to say it was awkward for me is a serious understatement. I can do all things through Christ. Phil 4:13
Since I have never been close to my dad it follows that I did not grow up sharing my feelings with him. I was always afraid of him yet desperate for his love and attention. He told me this week that he was hard on me when I was a child because I bullied my younger sister and irritated my older brother. Whoa. Yes, I have a pending amends with my sister but I never expected him to bring that up.
And going into the ‘amends conversation’ I was not thinking at all about how he was hard on me as a kid. I don’t remember that very much maybe I blocked it out and chose to see him only as distant. But according to his memory, I used to be very sweet when I was little but then I changed. Hmmm….interesting, “Why is he saying this??”, I wondered internally.
He said I was different from my siblings. He said I always wanted to hurt or annoy someone. He had assumed it was my ‘genes’ from my mother’s wayward brothers and because he had great hostility for them, he transferred that hostility to me and thus was harsh towards me.
“Oh-kaay….am I going to need to make another amends with him regarding that??”, I wondered nervously as he spoke.
Today in my CR step study meeting I pondered over these things and had a revelation that brought miraculous and unexpected healing into my heart. During the amends talk I told my parents that I always felt “bad” and “different” from others. False feelings of guilt and shame have haunted me as long as I can remember.
However, both of my parents on separate occasions have said the same thing: I was a very sweet little girl, then I changed.
My dad is an unbeliever currently and even he could see, “Now I understand why you acted that way. It wasn’t your genes, it was the problem you had inside.”
When friends tell me that I am sweet or good in any way it is hard for me to receive that but not anymore! I am sweet. I was sweet. Then I was injured and acted out my pain because “hurt people, hurt people”. God has used my unsaved dad to convince me once and for all to take off the garment/label of “BAD/DEFECTIVE”.
I am sweet!
2 Corinthians 2:14-16 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things?
If I were a betting woman and I am a betting woman indeed, my money is on my dad being one of those that is being saved.
Photo credit: JW Smith
Hello! Welcome to my Liberty Log. I write as the Holy Spirit moves me...well sometimes emotions move me too!
