Last September, I prayed two specific prayers. 1. A prayer of forgiveness toward my ex husband 2. That God would make me new. Both prayers carry so much more weight than I knew because if I knew then what I know today, I don't know if I would be brave enough to say such prayers. The thing is though, they kind of go hand-in-hand...
So, when I was led in this forgiveness prayer, I honestly thought once it was over, it was over. I cried it out and felt a little bit lighter inside. That feeling faded once I began having anxiety attacks and was becoming consumed by fear and anxiety. Fear of what, I don't really know. Its just like I felt so many things and had no way to process it all and could not just sit down and sort it all out.
Last month I went on an unexpected retreat to be intentional about going deeper in the Lord. The anxiety attacks were becoming stronger and more numerous and I knew I had to get to the root of it somehow. During the retreat I was in a time of worship and it was a little noisy in the room because everyone else was praying and singing out loud. In the midst of it all, God spoke to me in the most calm and clear way: "forgive him."
I know it has to be real, it has to be deep and tangible and I know that I need God to help me through it all. So I just told God that I trusted that he would show me. Then two days ago I read a blog post and the author said this of forgiveness:
"Through my healing process, I learned to choose forgiveness over bitterness, cynicism and hatred. I forgave. It’s been a hard, hard battle in my heart, but now that I’ve made the choice, I feel so much lighter.
Forgiveness helps you release the stifling control of the past; it drops away from you like a stifling cloak so you can move and breath and dance once more. Forgiveness doesn’t make you forget the past, but it changes the way you relate to the past. It’s a process, and it will probably never stop. Now that I know it’s truly important, I’m willing to choose it again and again, over and over, for the rest of my life."
I don't want to wait anymore.
Tonight, I am choosing to forgive you.
I forgive you for making me believe you loved me.
I forgive you for treating my virginity as a conquest.
I forgive you for all of the lies.
I forgive you for the porn.
I forgive you for the other women.
I forgive you for the ways you used me.
I forgive you for the times you threatened me and made me afraid.
I forgive you for rejecting our daughter before we were even home from the hospital.
I forgive you for walking away from our marriage.
I forgive you for doing things to make life that much harder on us.
I forgive you for telling the world our son is not really yours.
I forgive you for the pathetic reasons I have to give to my kids for your abandonment.
I forgive you for the continuation of the rejection by getting married again.
I forgive you that I now have to explain to my kids that you now have another child.
I forgive you for the nights I feel the pain so intensely.
I forgive you for the times I feel like I am falling so short as a parent and I have no one to turn to.
I forgive you for the birthdays, holidays, and special events you have missed and will miss in the future.
I forgive you, and I also thank you, for your selfishness in signing over your rights to be a dad to my kids. It has honestly been one of the greatest blessings in all of this.
I forgive you. Not because you deserve it, but because I long for my heart to be free. I want to walk in the freedom that Jesus died for me to have. He forgave me, so I am forgiving you. I will walk it out every single day until it is finished.
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