Faith to Forgive

When I was four years old, we lived about five or six blocks away from my grandmother’s house. Back then it was much safer in the little town that we grew up in, so whenever my two year old sister and I wanted to go to my grandmother’s, my mom would walk us to the end of our street and let us hold hands to walk to meet my grandmother who would be standing at the end of her sidewalk waiting for us. After my parents divorced, my father moved away so my grandmother stepped in and helped my mom with raising the two of us. My mom’s and grandmother’s work schedules overlapped, so my older cousin who was living with my grandmother, would often pick me and my sister up from daycare and watch us until my grandmother made it home from work.

One afternoon shortly after my cousin had picked my sister and I up from daycare and brought us to my grandmother’s house, I heard sirens…lots of sirens. I remember thinking that those sirens were probably going to my mom’s apartment, but I hoped that they weren’t. A few minutes later, the phone rang. My cousin answered it, yelled to me “Shoni, come and get the phone; your momma wants to speak to you” and he ran out the door. When I got on the phone with my mother who was crying hysterically, I vividly remember her telling me that she loved me and my sister and told me to always take care of my sister. And then she hung up the phone. I stood there in that kitchen, alone with my little sister thinking that I’d never see my mom again because the monster that she had been dating had finally managed to hurt her badly enough to kill her.

Most people have a full name that consists of three names: a first, middle and last. This man’s complete name was made up of four names; a first, two middle and a last which I knew very well because the police was at our home so often citing it as they took incident reports from my mom after he had, again, broken in through our kitchen window. If he didn’t break in through the kitchen window, he would break the tiny glass window on the living room door that was just above the doorknob and let himself in. I would lie awake in the bed with my sister many, many nights as she slept waiting to hear either the glass shatter or the air conditioner unit being torn from the kitchen window. Somehow, he’d always manage to make it into the apartment and beat my mom and leave before the police could get there. My sister would wake up crying, and I’d sit there and try to comfort her not knowing whether or not I’d walk into the living room and find my mom dead.

As time passed over the years, I had somehow managed to push those cycles of events from the forefront of my mind. I had forgotten about how this man with four names terrorized us almost every night unless my mom allowed our cousin and his friend to spend the night. I had forgotten how he had taken a butcher knife and stabbed our furniture multiple times and then went to the refrigerator and threw tomatoes and eggs all over it. I had forgotten about the day that a four year old me, thought that he had managed to kill my mom when he slit her wrist. I had forgotten about it all until the day that I was out with my then boyfriend (who is now my husband) and I spotted that monster in a store. He immediately recognized me because I favor my mom a lot, but it took him to keep staring at me before I realized who he was. It had been well over 20 years since I had seen this man and all of a sudden the memories flooded my mind and right there in the middle of that store, I wanted to kill him. My demeanor instantly changed and it was so noticeable that my boyfriend hurried and got me out of that store. He, of course, had no idea what was going on but he knew that for some reason I had become very upset and with no warning.

Over the next few years, I often thought about how I could torture and terrorize him the way that he did my mom, my sister and I. I was so filled with rage for this man that I wanted him dead. For every time that he made my grandmother cry as my mother would leave her house with us to go home, I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to lie awake at night scared as someone broke into his home just as my sister and I had. I wanted him to bleed from a slit wrist as he believed that he might die, just as my mom had.

In February of 2003, I gave my life to Christ and became a born again believer. Regularly attending services at a Word-based church and studying the Bible on my own, helped me to learn a lot of things about the person that I was. There was so many things that I didn’t like about me at the time and one of those things was that I still hated that man who caused so much pain in my life and robbed me of  part of my childhood. I knew that I had to forgive because I knew that my unforgiving heart would come between me and a Father that I desired to love and please. I also knew that unless I forgave the man with four names, that I would spend eternity separated from the Lord. The thought of going to hell scared the hell out of me…literally.

Jesus says, “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions (Matthew 6:14-15). How much more clear could Jesus be about forgiveness and the consequences of not forgiving those who offend us? Now I’ll be very honest and tell you that even after reading and understanding that Scripture that I did not forgive overnight. What changed at that point was that I had a desire to forgive, but I didn’t know how to do it so I prayed every day, several times a day and asked the Lord to help me to forgive. Because I desired a change of heart, Jesus was able to then come in and assist me as I prayed for help. Isn’t it so good to know that our Lord is always ready to aid us in our times of trouble? It wasn’t days later, not even weeks later; but sometime during my praying and asking God to purge my heart the forgiveness came.

Fast forward over a decade later, and I still don’t like the man who violated my mom, my sister and I; however, I do love him as a child of God should. One might ask, ‘Well, how do you love someone whom you don’t even like?’ My response is, God never commanded us to like anyone; He commands us to love.  The love that I have for this man is that I hope that he too, has a relationship with God so that he will not spend neither the rest of his earthly life nor eternity separated from God.

Has someone hurt or offended you so badly that you haven’t forgiven them? Pray and ask God to help you to understand that forgiveness isn’t for the offender, it’s for you. It is for you because unforgiveness opens the door for the enemy to come in and escort you on a one-way trip to hell.  Ask God to open your spiritual eyes and to unveil anything that has been hidden in your heart that would cause separation between you and He. Ask Him to purge your heart, removing anything that would hinder you from spending your life with Him both now and in eternity. If after you’ve prayed and you still hold hatred in your heart against someone, think about this: wouldn’t it be so awful if because you did not forgive that your eternal home becomes a place filled with never-ending fire and torment, while the person whom you have ought against makes peace with God and has his home with the Father? I don’t know about you, but for me, it was a no-brainer; no one is or ever will be worth me losing my mansion (John 14:2)…not even the man with four names.