The Need to Forgive

By Marcella S. Meeks

936 Words

Ephesians 4:32 & Colossians 3:13 — Believers are called to be kind, tenderhearted, and forgive others just as Christ forgave them.

Matthew 18:21-22 KJV

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

     When I was a little girl, not more than six or seven, I was sexually abused by an older brother. Not one time, but many times. He started out just touching me and then he raped me every night until he eventually found a girlfriend and moved out.

      Mama knew he was doing it but she never stopped him.

     I was too young to understand what was happening to me but I knew it was wrong. I didn’t understand why he doing this. I told my mother what he was doing and she spanked me and told me not to ever say anything, so I didn’t.

     I grew up living with the shame of what he did to me and what he took from me as a child. I lived with that dirty secret for the entirety of my childhood. The shame and guilt lingered long after he left home.

     Several years ago, I was at work and this same brother came after my girls and it was then that I knew I had to bring this nasty little secret to life and stop this pervert. He never got the opportunity to touch my girls, and for that I am forever thankful.

     I told others what he had done to me as a child and all at once, he became the victim and lied his way out of it all. The sad part was, he did the same thing to his own children and possibly his granddaughters but nothing was ever done about it. When I talked to his daughters, they said he never touched them but when they were teenagers, they told my daughters what he had done and warned them to stay away from him.

     All my adult life, I remembered those horrible nights and the longer I lived with it, the worse the shame and guilt haunted me.

     Later on, right before he passed away, my sister called and told me he wanted to apologize to me for what he had done. I accepted his apology but refused to see him or go to his funeral. Some of my family thought I was wrong but I had lived with the shame of what he did to me all those years and I just didn’t think I needed to be around him. Forgiving him was one thing God required me to do and that I did. But that was as far as I could go with it.

     I decided not to take it to the authorities before he died. I figured that someday he’d have to pay for his hideous crime. When he was dying, I figured death was his reward for his evil crimes. I did forgive him and to me, that was all that mattered.

     I never once heard my mother tell me what he did was wrong. She never discussed it with me all the years after I grew up and she didn’t want to accept the fact that I didn’t want to be around him at all. I avoided social functions that he attended if I knew ahead of time that he would be there.

     Later on, I found out from older siblings that mama had been abused by some of her brothers, and her step son-in-laws so that explained a few things to me where mamma was concerned. I forgave her after I found that out. All she had to do was be honest with me and maybe together, we could have figured out how to handle things better.

     Mama never liked drama, and she tried to keep peace in our family as much as possible. She was just that kind of person. But her young daughter suffered abuse because she chose to look away and keep trouble from stirring. That was a hard dose to swallow.

     I’m just the opposite in a lot of ways. I don’t like trouble either but if you try to hurt my daughters, then you’ll deal with me.

     When my daughters were very young, I always told them that if he ever showed up at their grandmothers house while they were there, to stay away from him. And they did.

     I had to live with the abuse as a child and the shame and guilt left behind. But when I became a Christian, Jesus removed the shame and guilt from my life and I can handle things much better now.

     Thank you Jesus for allowing me to be able to forgive my brother for what he did to me as a child. My sister told me later that he cried for hours for what he had done to me when I was little, and he told her that he wished he could undo his wrong. She said he prayed before he died and asked God to remove that sin from his life. I am thankful that he realized what he had done and was able to ask God to forgive him as well.

     Is there anyone in your life that has wronged you in some way and you need to forgive him or her? Ask God to help you find the strength to forgive.

In Jesus Name, Amen.