Forgive.....and Forget?!

Sometimes, you think you have forgiven, forgotten and then it hits you. It blindsides you and holds you to ransom. Tells you you are a prisoner of hope and your deliverer is unaware. 

This is why I needed a deliverer who does not blink, who does not sleep nor slumber. Who sees thoughts afar off and knows the inward parts. My deliverer takes the bull by the horn literally and delivers it to me a gentle calf. 

Takes raging storms and stormy seas and brews me a cup of green tea and puts a generous dollop of honey in it for my robust taste of life.

He knows. How I was first mad and then angry and then afraid and then pliant. Asking, how shall this be? And when He was ready to speak, I opened up, listened and instantly obeyed and became free.

First, of guilt. For the many years of accusations had taught me to wear the jacket of guilt and sometimes, it was a crop top but always I had to wear it. For if ever I was without it, he got mad. 

He saw his hold over me slipping and didn’t like it, he mostly threw a tantrum that made me react and then he used my reactions as fodder for a new cycle. So, I had to get rid of all the guilt. 

This involved looking candidly at what I had done & deleting all the excuses for doing them.
Facing up to them and deciding I was responsible.

Next came the admission that I had allowed this. It couldn’t have been done if I hadn’t. Like that popular saying, ‘No one can make you feel small without your permission’. I let this go down and therein lies my part. At the first sign of the bad behavior, I ought to have walked but I stayed and while I am better at understanding why, it does not absolve me of my part in the nightmare that resulted.

Next was acceptance and the consequent release. Of forgiveness of actors and self and even BigG. It was hard to understand how He watched and let this happen but He walked me through every sign and warning and how I rationalized them in light of the toxic Christianity that I had been raised with.

It stripped me of every belief and reconstructed my most fundamental belief and saw me emerge with a renewed understanding of the One I call God & in our closet where our intimacy sometimes overwhelms me, BigG. I found Him to be true, caring and never ever wrong. He also was such a good God, I could do little wrong because He made ALL things work for my good. The final plot was His, written in primordial times for my benefit and all I did was amusing to Him it seemed.

I remember being told ‘gbogbo ibi to ba koju si, ona ni…’ I was railing then and I told him what a cop-out that was but He merely laughed and said, git!

I left and did what I thought He would disapprove of but He was there cheering me on and I finally understood. Nothing proved His love to me like that. I was assured of his eternal love so long as we were in consonant.

I gave it all up one day....... in a fetal position on my bedroom floor after struggling to do school run cos I had to be a responsible parent. I cried my inability to do life anymore and I watched as Angel Jamiu watched me with sad eyes and stood back till I felt His arms around me. He held me as I wept my need to be right, to be avenged and to inflict the pain I had been through. He whispered promises in my ear and I insisted I had heard those before and He said, they were assured. He took ALL the pain away totally. I could not believe it. I kept waiting for it to hit again but it’s been years since.

I am healed. I say again, healed of the entire trauma that I have experienced but mostly cos I chose it to end. I was done enabling the pain and hurt. I was healed of the need to be something less than who I was made to be.

In Thanksgiving, I share this, written in the midst of the confusion that led to my healing. I am grateful for life. Grateful that I am still here. Unable to settle for less than I should have, knowing what price I paid for freedom.

I cannot forget.