Continued from here.

If I was reading this blog series 15 years ago, I would have angrily responded with, “But it wasn’t my fault!! I was six years old!! It was NOT my responsibility or fault that I was sex-trafficked!!” And those words are true. They are not incorrect, but they are incomplete.

I was not responsible for being sex-trafficked as a child. I was, however, responsible for hating my child abusers, which Jesus said is murder. I was responsible for “punishing” the people in my life who tried to love me as I rejected them because of what had been done to me in the past. I was responsible for idolizing food, seeking relief from my pain through an eating disorder rather than seeking the arms of God for my healing.

Again, I would have reacted angrily to reading those words: “If I had not be abused, I would not have NEEDED an idol!! How dare you tell me that I am sinning for hating the people who raped me!! My life is one big train wreck because of other people’s evil choices!! How DARE you tell me that I am sinning by hating them for doing this to me!!”

If this is your reaction to what I have written, I say to you with much gentleness and tenderness – God’s healing is bigger than your pain. My heart was beyond broken. It was shattered into a million pieces, but God gave me a new heart. While I have not forgotten all of the pain I carried for decades, it seems like a lifetime ago – like the story of a dear friend from long ago who has since been healed. I feel separated from all of that pain and heartache because God has healed me, and He will heal you, too, if you will let Him. But you’ve got to do it His way, and that requires forgiving those who broke you, which I know is the last thing you want to hear, but it’s the avenue God uses to heal shattered hearts.

A friend who is having a difficult time forgiving asked me if I would forgive someone who murdered my child, and I said yes. She asked how I could do it. I responded that the alternative is to carry the weight of that anger and pain around for the rest of my life. It’s not worth it.

To be continued…

[Graphic: Cartoon of Grace shrugging under the words, “My bad.” Courtesy Bitmoji.]