I have a similar experience. I just wanted to say that I managed to forgive her when I said to myself : "Yes, I will revenche. But not against her. It won't help me if she gets hurt. My revenche will be against what she did to me. My revenche will be to get healed from all the traumas I got from her and to be the joyful person she didn't want me to be." And to manage to do this, I NEEDED to understand that what she did to me was intolerable. P.S. Don't hesitate to go to a psy. They are here to help you. If your heart is broken, it's just like if your leg is broken, you have to see a doctor so that it can get better. P.P.S. Sorry if I made English mistakes, I'm still not very at ease with this language. And thanks Justin for the subtitles, it helps (even though they are in English)
Forgiveness can be the hardest thing ever to do. I know. It took everything I had to forgive my stepmother for saying my best friend was in hell for killing himself. But when I was able to forgive her, it released a burden off my shoulders, a weight I had been carrying for decades. It doesn't take away what she said, but it allowed me to not live in the anger of what she said. I even felt sorry for her. Hurt people hurt people.
I’d like to share a moment in my life in which I experienced supreme grace…. I was at my Tante’s house some years ago, when she pulled out a photo album. She showed me pictures of her father, and my grandmother. Of the oxcart her brother and father pushed all of the families belongings on, which they could not keep… She told me of their escape from the soviets, only to be held in a ghetto in poland. Of the family that my parents would never meet… And of the guards that kept them there. She had a half dozen pictures of men in black uniforms. She knew all of their names. She told me about Klaus, who gave her his lunch one day because she had not eaten. And she held not a speck of anger in her heart. Now, you might say, she had 70 years to deal with this trauma, yes, thats true… but it’s a trauma that I still deal with today, and I never lived it. The fact that she could let go of that hurt… it gave me hope. That I too, might overcome my grief. And that with love and support, you might too.
You finally mentioned it near the end - prayer. Jesus can change our hearts in ways we cannot understand if we ask him to through prayer. You delivered such a good and important message, and you would not have been able to do so without having your own struggle with forgiveness. Thank you very much for sharing.
That was perfect timing. I just reconciled an old relationship and I'm still struggling with another one. This helped me figure out how to forgive them both moving forward.
