The Fire of Letting Go

The heart grows cold in the bitterness of regret
The pain of doubt wants to shout out
The love it withers in the anger of despair
How I thirst for the living waters
On my knees I stumble to the ground
dust to dust
The death is stealing the sound
of the heartbeat inside, of life denied 
as the ticking time clock races
The paces of steps are glued to the ground
I am paralyzed in the rearview
cracked glass - shatters the perspective
All these years in darkness, the light is reflected
No I see on bended knee, that life is still alive inside
My soul is thirsty and will be fulfilled in the SPIRIT's water
Still my soul is bound to the anger tied up 
Do I unleash the ghost or deny the pain
Do I live in the rage of the scarlet letter
Or do let the tears fall out
I shout and thunder, clap and cry out to the heaven's 
Into the sky, I commend my spirit - I let the pain rush forth
It falls like rain - It hails and floods
Now I am set free to go in peace
As the dove on the Forty-First day
I forgive - and release
I praise God for healing my grief
Loneliness of the dark, has left my heart
God's spark lightening the fire to restart
There is a release in all the unspoken words talking their string
Cutting down the lies and finding time is once again on your side
 

This is a poem I wrote about my journey of letting go from childhood trauma with my father, who I am consciously forgiving.  I've been on a forgiveness journey the past few years as I faced the reality that even though I thought I had 'forgiven' my father - his abuse still haunted me and left me in a state of want, agony, fear and deprivation - I felt unworthiness in the spirit of his hate and did not realize it was hiding fear and paralyzing oppressive energy in my heart and blocking my way forward.

While I have every reason to be justified in my grief, the act of forgiveness allows me to cut the cords of the chains of grief and move forward into a new life.

It is critical that people understand that the choice to forgive a person is a conscious choice - the flesh cannot will it - the SPIRIT compels us because anger-even if it is just paralyzes and blocks us from having a perspective to rise above the abuse and come into our own and take ownership of the wonderful plans God has for us.  We are blinded when anger from injustice wells up in our soul - it is a cancer - allowing the person who abused us to continue to do so.  It is like a residual haunting - you revisit and rehash the pain over and over again, all the while burying it so deep you act as though it doesn't exist - healing in either circumstance cannot occur.

Forgiveness is a journey of healing.  It is not about instant gratification - sometimes you can turn it over to God in one fell swoop, but often times we pick at the anger layer by layer and work out the issues and analyze the pain and allow it to rupture and resurface and in that agony choose, as Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane as he prayed with blood and sweat. 

Jesus compelled by the flesh was paralyzed by that moment by dread of death and the fear of the pain and torment - yet his love for humanity and creation and God's will compelled HIS Spirit to make a conscious choice to turn over that anger and fear to God.  Don't think Jesus had it easier that us in suffering because He is God, Jesus felt our every wound and every pain and could perceive the fear and anguish and rage that is natural when persecution and betrayal take root - sin causes a division of the heart - Jesus realized that anger and rage only further divide our hearts against God and that is why we must turn it over to HIS infinite mercy and grace because otherwise we will die in our Spirit - blocked by suffering - instead of refined by it.

I am in the final stages of forgiveness and I'll admit it is not always an easy journey - but I look to Jesus and the Stations of the Cross...like his road to the Cross - sometimes healing out of tragedy is excruciating, painful and we ask 'Where is God' - God is with us - God is in the tears, the questions, the torture of a soul in mourning - God mourns the tragedy - but he also allows our healing to crucify the anger so we can rise above temporal vengeance (a form of 'justice' that appears to be a source of retribution but really further divides a soul and leaves one in a state of wandering and resentment) - and in the power of forgiving we take ownership of God's divine and perfect justice.  

Does the act of turning over a wrong to God mean the person who harmed us is not accountable or we should not seek justice on earth?  No, but it allows us to have perspective that if earthly justice does not occur that God always executes justice - we might not see it - but he is at work.  Letting God through Christ take on the yoke of our just anger - allows us to be empowered by HIS healing and HIS justice and HIS love so we can live and do something AMAZING in our own lives - lives not marred by the cruel acts of angry men, but lives lived with hope and active faith and a persevering spirit to be content to climb the mountain, let go of the fear and enjoy God's grace in even the darkest of circumstances.

Sometimes things are so dark and harmful - how can we forgive - we cannot unless we have God's help to remove the burden - the burden is the wages of sin committed by another and inflicted on a pure soul - and our struggle with the effects of that sin.  Since only Christ can free us from sin - then we need him in our journey of forgiving to live.

Jesus's advice to the man who had to bury his father speaks volumes of the journey of forgiveness and past regret: Let the dead bury the dead.