Today’s guest post is from Patricia Singleton author of the blog Spiritual Journey of a lightworker.
Thank you Patricia for sharing your thoughts and experiences with us. I appreciate your honesty very much 
!
“Forgiveness – Letting God Handle It
Long before I ever started healing from incest, I was told that I should “forgive those who trespassed against me.” I was told by two different ministers that I should just forgive my dad and get on with my life. Neither man could tell me exactly how I should do that. Neither really knew how to help me and left me feeling worse, not better. I didn’t tell either minister my story other than to tell them that I was sexually abused by my dad when I was a child.
I wanted to forgive my dad but I didn’t know how. The ministers told me that I needed to forgive my dad so that God could forgive me. I cried because of the pain that I was in. I left the church feeling much worse than when I had entered it.
Years later, when I got into 12-Step meetings because my dad was also a raging alcoholic and my mother was very codependent, I started hearing the comment, “Well, your parents did the best they could.” Sometimes someone would add the words, “with the tools they had.” I was numb and in shock the first time that I heard those words. I hadn’t started feeling yet.
After I started feeling, I became very angry when someone would make those statements. I didn’t see how either of my parents could possibly have done the best that they could during the six years that I remember being sexually abused by my dad. I was never allowed to be a child. I was always given the responsibilities of an adult.
A few years later, a new mentor came into my life. She told me, “Your parents did the best they could with the tools that they had and it wasn’t good enough.” Finally someone was saying what I needed to hear, “It wasn’t good enough.” With those words, I could finally start to validate my hurt and anger at my parents. My mentor told me that I didn’t have to ever forgive my parents if I didn’t want to. I could heal without it. She also told me that if I could forgive my parents, it didn’t mean that what they did was okay. Their actions were wrong. That would never change.
At that time in my life, I didn’t think that I would ever forgive my parents for the incest and the emotional abuse that was a big part of it. I hurt too much to even think about forgiveness. I was too angry with my parents to forgive them. I didn’t even want to forgive them then.
The only person that I could forgive was myself. For many years, I had abandoned my inner child – the little girl me that was sexually abused, the little girl who couldn’t protect herself from the demands of her parents. I blamed that little girl and I had to forgive her for being a helpless child. I had to forgive the adult me for abandoning that little girl. Those I could work on and do the forgiveness.
At 17, when I was emotionally stronger and more mature than my dad, I said no to the incest. I had reached the point of not caring if everyone knew about the incest. I was in so much pain that I could tell if he didn’t leave me alone, I was close to an emotional breakdown of some kind. I knew it. I could feel it. I was barely hanging on to my sanity. My dad never physically touched me again. The emotional abuse and intimidation never stopped until I left home at 19 after finishing my second year of college.
After I said no and my dad left me alone, then I felt guilty that I didn’t say no earlier. I did say no many times and each time, except the last, I was coerced into giving in. I was so tired physically and emotionally. I had to forgive myself for blaming the 17 year old for not being strong sooner. I came to finally believe that I didn’t cause the incest and I wasn’t to blame for it. Being raped by my dad was not my fault. Even at 17, I was still a child who had no control over my own life. I could forgive the child and the adult me but I still couldn’t forgive my parents.
By listening to my inner voice and having conversations with God, who I had reconnected with as my Higher Power through 12-Step meetings, I was able to tell God that I just couldn’t deal with the forgiveness of my parents. I asked God to handle the forgiveness thing for me until I could do it for myself. I didn’t think that I would ever forgive my parents for the incest.
Forgiveness didn’t happen for me for many years. After putting it into God’s hands, I let go of it and concentrated on working on healing myself. I didn’t know that forgiveness could come as a result of the process of working on my issues. I didn’t know that as I healed my views of forgiveness would also change. Forgiveness, to me, meant letting go of the pain, anger, hurt, sadness. I was no longer controlled by my dad or my reactions to the incest.
On my blog Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker ( http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com ) you will find a large number of posts on forgiveness and the process that I went through to get there. What I want to leave you with here is that forgiveness is an individual choice as to when and if you ever do it. Don’t do like I did for years and beat yourself up if you can’t forgive. You are not a bad person if you choose not to forgive. Forgiveness is for you, not for your abusers. You don’t even have to tell your abusers that you have forgivenen them, if you do. God is who I told when I finally realized that I was ready to forgive.”
