I have struggled tremendously with doubt and feelings and forgiveness lately. This may seem weird to some but you must understand I was raised in a highly conditioned abusive environment where doubt was an indication that you were not elect, feelings were bad or faked, and forgiveness was scarce and not at all free.
Not that we were as logical as true calvinists though, because we didn't say God chose some and not others. No far more insidious was the always dangling possibility that God would forgive, of course. But only if we were sufficiently repentant and that was clearly visible by ceasing to do bad things, like questioning why the cuffs of my pants had anything to do with my relation to God, or getting sick from being force fed fat and gristle and thus wasting food like an ingrate. Clearly, I was a hardened sinner whom God would punish, and whom my parents were also going to punish. But I must forgive them lest I further prove my unrepentant heart.
So God, yes, I'm bitter. I'm angry, hurt. I can't deny it. But that's the point of this entry. I won't rehash forgiveness. Read back. But I do now desperately want to release this bitterness. I want to let go of the hurt and subsequent protective anger at all those who didn't forgive me. Who forced me to conform, who ignored the signs and cries for help, who did not give me the grace they wanted.
Even those who have dangerously skewed perceptions of God and salvation. I want to let this go.
I don't have any other way to explain it. I still don't know what's real. But I can only appeal to the form it takes in my mind and ask God to take this. Snap these chains. Let me be free. It's what they say about you, right? If we confess our failures you are faithful and just and will forgive us and cleanse us from all injustice.
I need it. I need to hear it. To feel it. Like Matt Damon, I need to hear it driven home, it's not my fault. I need to be free and I can't free myself.
