"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins" Matthew 6:14-15
There are not very many people in my life who know of the things that I went through when I was 14 and 16. They are things that I have kept extremely private. There are still huge parts of my story that I just can't seem to share yet, it is so personal and so difficult for me. But what I can share, I have gotten a lot more open about since I have gotten older.
Let me start by telling you the basics. When I was 14 and 16 I was raped. Both times by the same guy. Both times I was petrified of him because he was older, bigger, and stronger than me. When I was 14 I told a couple of friends of mine who made sure I was safe whenever they could. I credit them with protecting me a lot. They managed to make this guy leave me alone for a couple of years. But when I was 16 he managed to squirm his way back in my life. And my friends from before weren't around to protect me anymore. It was just me. All on my own. And I couldn't protect myself from him.
See I had been discouraged from telling anyone because when I told my best friend what had happened, she said it wasn't rape because we were dating and he didn't hold a gun to my head. The guy who did it told me I had wanted it, that it was all my fault, etc.
It's been over half my life since the first attack happened and so much has changed for me. See before I cared so much what other people thought. Would they believe me? Would he convince them that I was a slut asking for it? Would people think that I had done it and was covering it up? You still see that so much nowadays. No wonder women who are raped wait so many years before saying anything. They are petrified. Not only are they scared of the person that attacked them, but they also have to be scared of what the people around them, their friends, their family, the public, will have to say about it. Nobody takes anyone serious these days. I'm here to say that rape is a serious thing. It's a big deal, it leaves a huge scar and makes a huge impact on a person.
My attacks destroyed relationships. I couldn't trust men. At all. It changed me so much. I did things after my attack that I swore I would never do. I became somebody that I didn't want to be, but I felt dirty. I felt like someone had made the choice for me about who I was going to sleep with, and I decided I was going to make that decision myself and that since he had started the choice I could do it with whomever and whenever I wanted to. It was a bad life, it was wrong.
I let him control me for so long. I wondered if he was going to hear that I had told people. Was he going to come after me like he said he would? Would he search for me and attack me again? I was scared of him, and it didn't matter that he wasn't in my life because I knew it was easy for him to just magically appear in my life and take what he wanted. I let him destroy me. I let him destroy relationship after relationship. I let him change who I had planned on being in my life. I woke up one day and realized there was only one thing I could do to change the path that he had helped put me on. I had to forgive him.
Forgiving him was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my entire life. He didn't ask me to forgive him. In fact as far as I know he still doesn't admit that he even did anything wrong. But I wasn't forgiving him for him, I was doing it for me. God tells me that I need to forgive him, that I need to forgive his sins. And so about 13 years after the first attack I woke up one morning, I got on my knees and I prayed to God for strength and comfort to do something that I had needed to do for 13 years. Then I sat there and cried. And I cried out "I forgive you." then in that moment, I let it all go.
I'm not going to say it was that simple, trust me it wasn't. I still find moments where something scares me. Where a memory comes up and I start to panic a little bit. And when it does, I pray for the strength and once again I say "I forgive you." and I let it go. It isn't a one time process, because it wasn't a one time thing. It was a thing that wrecked my life for 13 years and controlled me and changed me. But it is so much easier. I don't look over my shoulder anymore, I don't worry about running into him, I don't think about what I would do if I saw him, I don't get scared. I just live my life. And it is an amazing feeling.
You may or may not have been through a rape, but maybe you have been through something that you need to forgive someone for. Please, don't wait until they say they did something wrong, don't wait until they ask for forgiveness. You don't need them to acknowledge their wrongdoing, you just need to forgive them. It will heal your heart and it will help you move on. I pray that you have the strength to let it all go and to move on.
