FORGETTING PAST ABUSE BY TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

Why should forgetting past abuse be our responsibility? Shouldn’t it be up to the abusers to help us? Why should they continue with their lives and leave their victims living in pain and depression, not knowing how to get free?

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The Answer:

Victimizers don’t care about the people they abuse. They make up excuses and reasons why it’s okay to harm others for their personal benefit or gain. I learned later in life, that my family abusers made the excuse that I was a non-person so it was okay for them to be void of any feeling or responsibility toward me. The self-righteous reasoning of this type of thinking has no validity because there is never a reason to harm people for sport or “just because a person can.”

No one has the right to determine that anyone is fair game to harm physically or emotionally. The only purpose for harming someone is for self-defense or saving the lives of others. That’s it! Anything else is abuse! If you’re not sure about what I’ve just said, then you need to get into God’s Word to realize how important you are and how God sees you. When you learn how valuable you are to God, then you’ll begin to better understand how evil abuse is and how little the people who abuse you care about how you feel.

Abusing others is evil and sick. Everyone is important to God. He created each of us and He should be the driving force behind everything we do if we’re a Christian. I’ve known many abusers who sat behind their pastor as a church leader during Sunday services, but during the week, they shed their Christian mask. To be a Christian one day a week and a mean-spirited person or abuser the rest of the week puts a person in the category of being a hypocrite concerning their Christian faith.

If one really has Christ in their heart, how can they go against the goodness of God? This is between the abuser and God, but keep in mind that it’s a good sign that one may be using Christianity to gain people’s trust. So never trust someone automatically when they say they’re a Christian. We must all earn one another’s trust.

If an abuser is not a Christian, they have no reason to hold back on their treatment of people they find easy to abuse. So whether an abusive person is a Christian or a non-Christian they need to pay whatever price for their behavior. They do not deserve to be protected or pitied. However, abusers who claim to be a Christian are the most dangerous, because they hide behind, church, respected organizations and the respected people they befriend.

Never allow someone to abuse you because they are respected in church. Look to God and He will lead you away from any abuse to people you can trust. The longer you wait to get away from abusive people, the more difficult it will be for you to have safe and good relationships.

Note: When a person who has abused you admits it and apologizes to you, don’t automatically trust them, especially if the abuse has been violent. If you wish to be with them, they must first earn your trust by getting help and taking as long as needed to prove they have changed and to make those they have abused feel comfortable with them. If they refuse, they have not changed and are lying to gain more opportunities to continue their abuse.

Apologies aren’t enough after continued abuse and disrespect. However, many abusers will never admit that they enjoy victimizing others because they want to keep a false identity of appearing to be a responsible person. This false identity is actually the key to their getting away with repeated abuse to one or more persons and it’s at the center of why they’re so very dangerous.

Forgetting Past Abuse To Become Whole:

It only makes logical sense that if a person doesn’t take responsibility for their recovery, they’ll never be “whole.” But looking to their abuser or abusers for help is impossible. They have no ability to care about “right” and “wrong” and they don’t have any regard for their victims. They can only keep hurting them unless they get help and desire to change. As an adult the first step to heal from the past is to separate from your abuser(s) and stop trying to establish a normal relationship with them to fix things.

The only exceptions are people who abuse others because of an illness or stress and they’re doing their best to get help. If they’re truly remorseful and continue to seek help, in time they might win the trust of those they’ve harmed–but they should never pressure them to restore a relationship. This is a sign they haven’t changed. Sometimes good people have breakdowns and they take it out on those they love and don’t even realize they’re doing it. This is wrong, but this situation can be fixed.

Every situation is different, so caution, time and professional help may be needed to determine if such a person should be allowed into your life. However, remain distant with abusers who have no remorse about their actions and feel their abusive behavior justified. They deserve no leniency or understanding. YOU NEED TO THINK ABOUT YOU! And never care if they say that you’re hurting their feelings–they don’t really have emotion to care about those they abuse.

Forgive Your Abuser To Be Free:

You need to forgive your abuser or you’ll allow what they did to affect just about everything you do, react to or feel! If you’re a Christian, God’s Word will only have a limited affect upon your life for change. It’s important to your recovery to let what happened to you go and that can only be done if you have no bitterness about the person who abused you.

Another reason to forgive is that you’re allowing the person who abused you to continue the abuse for the rest of your life. Their past actions will keep you from moving forward. A thought or memory will send you back to the past and you’ll become sad or depressed. Then you’ll become more and more bitter over the years, maybe develop a chip on your shoulder or believe that everyone is against you. You may be so confused that you could sway back and forth from one of these emotions to the other. Worse, you could become an abuser yourself.

Letting go of the past takes great pressure of one’s life and frees them to be at peace to live their life purpose. Hatred and bitterness can cause an abused person to become so void of feelings and will never experience the true joy of living we’ve all been blessed to live.

Learning How To Forgive The Right Way:

Learning how to forgive based upon scripture is essential to forgetting past abuse. Years ago I learned how to forgive God’s way because I was growing more bitter everyday. I was bitter that my family thought so little of me when I still loved them. As I’ve mentioned, bitterness breeds all types of negative emotions that become the driving force for all of our goals and everything we do. This means that we can’t follow God’s best for our lives by following the Word because we’ll be led by bitterness, hatred and anger.

I saw my face in the mirror one day when I was thinking about how I never could do enough to make my mother love me and I was shocked. I looked mad and angry. And I could see the past frustration and bitterness embedded in my countenance. I realized how my family had been stuck looking at my angry face even at times when I wasn’t angry. Yikes! This was not a good moment for me!

I knew from that time on that I had to change my life and I had to forgive myself and my family for not loving me. I used God’s Word for the definition of forgiveness which is to “forget as if something had never happened.” I studied the Bible on the subject of forgiveness to learn what to do and it was very simple. People say they forgive but they still hold grudges and keep talking about what was done to them. That didn’t make sense to me. I wanted to take an action that would cause a permanent healing in myself and forgiving God’s way did just that.

God says in the Old Testament that He forgives our sin as if it never were. Not only can we forgive someone for peace of mind, but we can forget about what they did forever. It’s dead! It’s forever obliterated so that we can live successful lives.

Isaiah 43:25 NIV  “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.

This means that you can forget about your abuser if you want to let them go. Your forgiveness is between you and God, not you and your abuser if they’ve never asked for your forgiveness. So you can forgive for your peace of mind, but you never have to share your life with that person ever again.

You don’t have to acknowledge them or consider them in any way. Yet you’ll be free to move on with the rest of your life in peace. If you think about them or what they did to you, it will become a distant memory as time goes by and it won’t carry the baggage or intense emotion that is harmful.

If this message is difficult for you, read it over a few times and meditate upon it until it begins to make sense that the only way to be free from the harm done to you is to practice forgetting past abuse no matter how much harm you have experienced. I promise you, your life will never be the same once you take this life-changing step.

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