Forgiveness- The action or process of forgiving or being forgiven. God’s forgiveness-washing us white as snow. (Isaiah 1:18) God’s promise not to count our sins against us…but requires repentance on our part.

I had a powerful session today and this word kept coming up, both out loud and inside of my head. Through the years, I’ve struggled to let things go. To allow others to possibly do harm to me, and render them forgiven. My view was more of the “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.” In some cases, I sought to bring harm before the other person had a chance. “I will hurt you before you can hurt me.” When I read this now, it makes me sad. Sad that I spent so many years of my life in such turmoil. That I was not capable of turning the other cheek, or just walking away. Times, they are a changing.

We’ve all been there, and I’m sure on so many levels. Pain caused by others. Whether it’s from a close family member, your best friend, co-worker, or just a random person on the street. People have a way of being mean. This then forces us to wall up, put on the armor and take no prisoners. To become an impenetrable force. A wall of blackness. If I become the monster, no one can harm me. Where does it go from there? How do we ever take that armor off, and if we do, will we be harmed again?

I’ll take a few of my own examples and we’ll see how this goes. I’ve been married twice prior to finding Karla. Each of my prior marriages ended in some form of sadness, regret, and even anger. The sadness of feeling as though you’ve wasted years of your life with someone that had no business crossing your path, and the regret that you made a mistake and chose poorly. The anger part came about more so with my second marriage. Because both of these women had substance issues, alcohol being the prime issue. I found myself hating my wife at the time, alcohol and the damage it was causing to my family. It seemed as though I was trapped, with no escape in sight. The promises of staying sober, or clean were made and broken. The tears of pain that flowed because a thief was stealing my children’s smiles. The amount of rage and desire to seek revenge were building. Even after she had moved out, I loathed her very presence. I’d reached my breaking point, and decided to visit an Al-anon group.

The rooms (as they’re referred to) are a safe haven. Filled with others that walk in the same type situations that you might. They have loved ones, friends or co-workers that have brought them to this place. Not in a physical sense, but a spiritual. Each of us had reached our bottom and needed to find a way to live. My first few visits had me thinking that I might be in the wrong place. They spoke of things like “working your program”, studying books with quick references about how to move through the day based on what you were feeling. They also spoke of forgiveness. That was something that was not at all on my radar. I didn’t want to forgive her, I wanted to forget her, and perhaps serve up some karma that I felt was taking too long on its own to get to her. A member of this group approached me after one of the meetings. She stated that she’d listened to my story and thought perhaps she could give some advice. As time went on, she became my sponsor and many of the knowledge nuggets she gave to me, I share on here. She told me after a meeting this; “there will come a day when you’ll be grateful that you had this alcoholic in your life.” What was this madness? Grateful, for her? For all that she’d done? There was no fucking way!

As time went on, I kept to studying my books, thinking things through and accepting that people are truly flawed. That some are predisposed to being alcoholics or drug addicts. That leaves the door open to believe that some of their actions are not necessarily by choice. (Stay with me, this is where it gets hard) I’ve always felt and still struggle with the idea that someone can be sober, know that if they have a drink or do a drug, things will go all the way off the rails. It makes you feel as though they get a pass for all their bad behavior, while you’re left holding the check! Yeah, it’s safe to say that I still struggle with that one, but I’ve remained open to the idea. I think about my father and the hell on earth that he, my uncle and my grandmother went through living with a seriously abusive alcoholic. It caused my father to never drink as an adult. He did still harbor the same demons that you see in an alcoholic, even being dry. My first wife just felt that it was the way of it. She kept it hidden at home, but as time went, became sloppier about it. She too had a mother that was never sober when we’d visit. I can’t think of a single time that she didn’t reek of alcohol, and what impression that had on everyone around her. To my wife at the time, it was just “normal.” That’s just the way “mom” is.

I could go on and on with many different relationships throughout my life where things didn’t go as planned. The question to all of this still remains, how do we find forgiveness? I’ll get into one more scenario. My past has haunted me for many years now. This was part of the discussion again today at my session with my counselor. I’ve had to take the mirror to myself on numerous occasions, and didn’t care for what I was seeing. This makes my counselor question why? What is it that makes you think you’re so bad, so not worthy. Not worthy of love, compassion, forgiveness. Each of the times that my counselor has asked me “when will Robert be forgiven?” It’s brought me to tears. The idea that someone like me still has value has been hard. I know that I’m a better man, and that I’ve done much to turn my life around. I see the fruits of my labor at every turn. Yet for some reason I still harbor this ill will towards myself. Perhaps from many of life’s events, I gave up on myself.

I will tell you all now that I’m making strides, truly. The world that I lived in as a child, and teen is no longer there. I’m turning the corner and just down the way is forgiveness. I can see it now and it’s like a beacon of light. I’m tired, and no longer want to hold onto the darkness that holds me back. I want to be alright with being me. There’s nothing that any one person can say to any of us when we feel lost, hurt, betrayed that’ll make everything alright. You just need to keep moving on. “Let go and let God.” That was another saying in the rooms. Even if you don’t believe in God, it was explained to me that you can just believe in a higher power. Whatever that higher power might be, turn everything over to it. I’ve had moments that I didn’t think I could keep going. I closed my eyes and said to myself that it was all too much, please take it away…and it was gone. Forgiveness stepped in and took the load. Be it forgiving that loved one that’s wronged you, or forgiving yourself for being that crazy mixed up kid that just didn’t seem to do all the right things. Allow yourself to be the hero of the story, and never look back. I will forgive myself, today.

Thank you so much for reading.

~Robert~