The Forgiveness Factor

– A Journey from Intellectual Understanding to Miraculous Release

CONTENT WARNING: This essay contains a description of childhood sexual abuse. Reader discretion is advised. If you need support, resources are available through RAINN (1-800-656-HOPE) or online at rainn.org.

PERSONAL JOURNEY DISCLAIMER: This narrative shares my individual experience with forgiveness. It is not intended as instruction for others to "just forgive and forget." Each person's healing journey is deeply personal, proceeds at its own pace, and may take entirely different paths. I honor and respect whatever process brings you healing. This is mine.

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The last time I posted, I wrote about learning how deeply love and forgiveness matter on a physical level. If you haven’t read that post yet or need a refresher because it was posted a month ago, you can read the post entitled “Beyond Clean Eating: The Emotional Foundations of Health”

As a quick summary, in the book, Feelings Buried Alive Never Die, Karol Truman shared the story of how love and forgiveness kept an imprisoned man healthy, while all around him suffered from lack of food and good sanitation. Today, I share with you my own story about what true forgiveness required and how it manifested in my life, what became real in the MATERIAL matter-ial world.

In the days before seatbelt requirements, when cars could be filled with as many people as would fit, smaller children were often held on older ones’ laps. One night during a car ride home, I’d fallen asleep, sitting on my grandpa’s lap, in the back seat. I awakened, startled by the unfamiliar sensation of being touched in my private parts. He immediately withdrew his hand from my tights, and hugged, shushed, and quieted me. Comforted, I relaxed. That is all that is remembered.

I was around seven years old then, and I don’t recall being further molested until I was a young teenager. The abuse ended completely when I was 15, after this aspect of my grandpa’s behavior became known. He was not charged “because of his age”; however, he was required to attend counselling and write apology notes to those he had harmed.

In hindsight, I am deeply grateful that my mother believed us (I wasn’t the only one), knowing now that lack of belief significantly multiplies the impacts of the trauma. I am also very thankful that my family frequented a chiropractor who understood the physical implications of unresolved emotional and mental burdens. Though he didn’t work in that realm, he could identify these burdens as causes of physical symptoms, whether from present or past experiences. This knowledge motivated me to “deal healthfully” with having been molested. In my teenage understanding, this meant forgiving my grandpa, which I did to the best of my knowledge. I understood forgiveness from our Christian biblical perspective as something necessary for salvation: Jesus forgave, so I should, too. And I believed I had done that, and I wasn’t afraid or triggered at family gatherings with my grandpa. I loved him, and I had forgiven him.

Some 15 years later, I thought I had processed everything well. To all appearances, I “had it all together”. No one would have guessed I was one of the one-in-four (or more) women who had experienced sexual abuse. Yet as a Christian raised in an ultra-conservative church who was growing in my faith, I still wondered, “How am I supposed to think about and deal with abusers?”

During this same period, as a young mother attending our home-church fellowship and participating in all church activities, I realized I was a good little Pharisee, outwardly a perfect Christian, saying and doing all the right (aka acceptable) things, but inwardly knowing I lacked a personal relationship with God. I began seeking both that relationship and the answer to my big question about dealing with abusers.

For about six or seven years, I prayed and read my Bible daily, gaining a more personal, experiential understanding of what it means to know God. I also read various books like Feelings Buried Alive Never Die and contemplated the story of the prisoner who chose love and forgiveness over hatred. Familiar Bible passages suddenly revealed new meanings to me. Still, that big question remained: “How are we supposed to deal with abusers?”

One morning while sitting on my front porch reading our weekly Bible study, I read again about Jesus on the cross saying, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” It was like the proverbial light bulb moment: “That's it! That's the answer to my big question!” Immediately after came the thought: “Okay… forgiveness. But I’ve already done that.” It felt anticlimactic: Well, duh, I know that. I did that. I've done that! But sitting there, I realized there must be something about forgiving I hadn't fully understood or experienced; otherwise, why would it feel like a revelation?

Then began the mental gymnastics. (For those not raised in the Christian belief system, what follows might seem strange, but it was the framework within which I operated.) My grandfather had died about five years before this front-porch experience, and I've since learned that when we have unresolved trauma or issues with people who have died, those issues eventually surface for resolution. We might think we've settled things, but when they pass away, any unfinished emotional work becomes apparent.

As I contemplated forgiveness as the answer to my big question, I began wondering about my grandpa’s salvation. I had been concerned about the status of his soul when he died but hadn’t thought about it often. When this suddenly came to mind again, I found myself asking God if I could know whether my grandpa was saved. In my convoluted reasoning, I thought if he was in heaven and I wanted to be there too, then I would need to complete this forgiveness work; but if he wasn’t there, maybe I didn't need to. This mental wrestling eventually led me to the conclusion that there was definitely more forgiveness work to do. Otherwise, why would I need to “logic” my way out of it?

I didn't receive an answer to my question about his salvation, but as I sat with the understanding that more forgiveness was needed, I realized that while I wished to forgive, I simply couldn’t. I came to understand that there was nothing in me capable of accomplishing what needed to be done—not even a capacity that could be helped or strengthened.

Finally, in desperation, I prayed, “God, do this forgiving FOR me!” I wasn't asking for assistance; I was asking God to carry me entirely across this chasm of what I couldn't do myself. And God did. Instantly. Miraculously. I knew because I suddenly felt weightless, as if I were floating off my chair. With tears streaming down my face, I thanked God for releasing ME from a burden that I hadn’t even known I was carrying!

We often think forgiveness means setting the abuser free, which raises questions about accountability. But in my experience, it was I who was set free.

We think forgiveness might dishonor the victim. In my experience, the honor and gift of freedom were all for me. Non-forgiveness had only been harming myself.

We think, “I’ll forgive when I’m sincerely asked for forgiveness.” In my case, Grandpa had asked forgiveness, but ultimately, if we take Jesus as our example, he asked God to forgive his abusers before they repented, which presumably means he had already forgiven them himself.

The feeling of weightlessness was an immediate spiritual, mental, and emotional result; soon, this spiritual liberation manifested in physical healing as well. For some time before this, I had been experiencing lumpiness in my breasts, and I typically experienced some discomfort with my menstrual cycles. Though I don’t keep journals or diaries to record exact timelines, I know that my breast issues resolved relatively quickly after that forgiveness experience, and I haven't had similar problems since. Even the minor menstrual discomfort I once experienced has transformed into a cycle that, for the past 15 years, comes and goes with such ease that I have to keep a calendar just so it doesn’t catch me unprepared!

I’ve since learned that female health issues often relate to our sense of femininity and womanhood, rooted in 1) our relationships with significant women like mothers and grandmothers, 2) sexual abuse of any kind 3) our internalized ideals about womanhood, or 4) divorce from or abuse by a husband or partner. Breast cancer, for instance, is often connected to the belief that a woman can never say no to anything asked of her, taking care of every one else at her own expense. And uterine cancer is connected to repressed anger, feeling like a martyr, and being “ticked off” at the male gender, as listed in the Feelings book mentioned here.

My journey through forgiveness taught me that what seems like a simple spiritual concept can be profoundly transformative. What began as an intellectual understanding became a physical, emotional, and spiritual liberation. The forgiveness I accomplished through willpower paled in comparison to the forgiveness that happened when I surrendered to and allowed a greater power to work through me. This is the miracle of forgiveness; it heals the forgiver.