On Forgiveness and Joseph

*The following contains some detailed memories from my childhood and uses verbiage you may find difficult or uncomfortable.  It is not meant to offend, merely to state facts as they stand.  Be advised, thankfully none of these memories involve a family member.  That being said...read on if you so choose.

      My memory of the first incident is very patchy at best.  I remember daylight filling my bedroom, I'm laying by the open doorway of the room staring out at the hallway, I can hear by brothers playing just around the corner and I want to call to them so very badly.  I want to yell for help, but I don't want them to see...I can't let them see.  The air is so heavy with his breath and the smell of sweat mixed with musk and Listerine.  I feel like I can't breathe.  I want to get up and run away, I want to yell for help but I know somehow that no one can ever see me this way.  I can't let them know because even though I don't understand why I'm being held to the floor or what he is doing on top of me...I know it's ugly and wrong.  I know that I feel dirty.  I am between five and six years old.

     The second incident is more clear and involved what I now know is called grooming behavior.  I was nine years old and already seeking any affirmation that I was not ugly or dirty, but beautiful and special.  It started as any grooming behavior would.  With seemingly innocent hugs, light touching, telling me how precious I was.  It ended with digital penetration and me blaming myself for allowing something horrible to happen to me again.  That's what a skilled predator does you know...they prey on someone in such a way that when they make their getaway the victim truly believes it is their own fault.  That somehow they...an innocent child...brought the pain and ugliness on themselves.  That somehow they deserve what happened because they are by nature worthless and dirty.  I believed that lie for another decade of my life before the truth blissfully freed me.  And I have been recovering from the emotional wounds of that lie ever since being set free.

     As I typed the two previous paragraphs I could feel my heart start to race and the well known terror build in my chest.  So very many years later and still the very scent of that original Listerine mouthwash is enough to make me nauseous.  I carry many wounds caused by the devastating invasion on my innocence that I have experienced..it would take an entire book to express them to you.  But this post is not about my scars.  Each of us has scars of some kind, mine are certainly not the greatest nor are they the least.  They are simply mine.  I am sharing these glimpses into my personal tragedies for the express purpose of setting the scene.  I am writing this post on what I have learned about forgiveness.  From one of my favorite men through time...Joseph of Egypt.

     Joseph, as you may know, was taken captive by his own brothers who were bent on murdering him.  One of his brothers at the last minute convinced the others to instead throw him into a giant pit then sell him as a slave to some passing traders.  Joseph ended up in Egypt and through many years of prison and trials he remained faithful to his God and rose to the second highest position in all of Egypt.  He was a man of visions and foretold of a great famine that would last for seven years.  Being second only to the pharaoh himself and having the power of the pharaoh behind him, he put away stores of food sufficient enough to provide for the entire nation during the time of famine.  Then, and here comes the good part, when the famine was at its worst and people in the surrounding countries were dying his brothers came to beg for food.  They were hungry, had nowhere to turn and were completely subject to the very brother who they had sold into slavery so many decades before.  Joseph had a choice.  He could forgive his brothers and help them or he could send them off to die returning favor for favor.

     This is what amazes me most about Joseph's story and the level of wisdom and love he must have had in his heart.  Joseph didn't just forgive his brothers and help them out.  He welcomed them in and told them, (this is not a direct quote) "I have nothing to forgive you for.  What you meant to do to me for harm, God meant for blessings to me."  Joseph recognized that his brothers in doing this awful thing were, unbeknownst to themselves, creating an opportunity for God to work miracles in Joseph's life and put him in the very place to be able to save a nation from starvation.  He did not make any excuses for his brothers' actions or say they were okay in any way.  He simply acknowledged that out of such a terrible and violent act toward him, God gave life and beauty and strength.

     Periodically in the past 25 or so years I have considered the things that were done to me by these two men in my childhood.  I have gone through the stages of denial (It's not like I was raped so it's not that big of a deal), anger (I want to rip their eyeballs out and shove them where the sun doesn't shine and make them physically incapable of harming another child ever.), despondency/depression (That took a miracle and counseling to work through) and then...forgiveness.  I've been working on that one for quite some time.  How can you forgive someone who has forever changed the very essence of who you are as an individual?  How can you forgive someone for ripping your innocence away and replacing it with shame, hurt, self loathing and fear?  How can you forgive someone when you legitimately don't remember their full names or even know how to track them down and face them as an adult who is fully aware that they are at fault and not you?  I have grown quite accustomed to ignoring those questions.  What is the point in stressing over them when I have no real answers?  But every once in a great while I will have a flash of a memory or deal with a situation at work that reminds me...and I will realize I have not fully resolved this last part.  This forgiveness thing.

     Several months back I had a conversation with a dear friend and he told me I reminded him of Joseph of Egypt, living so very far from my immediate family as I do.  I told him to please not compare me to such a great and Godly man since I see myself so very far from him in comparison.  As I went for an evening run/hike at a nearby mountain the words seemed to replay in my mind and I began praying about them.  Sometimes when I am alone I pray about what seem to be the most random things...but they lead down such awesome paths.  Anyway, I was praying about what my friend had said and considering the life of Joseph, when all at once a thought broke through like a ray of light through storm clouds.  "Joseph knew that what his brothers meant for evil, God meant for good.  What if the terrible acts those men did to you were meant to you for evil, but God meant them for good in you?"

     I stopped running and immediately began tearing up, I was so angry at that thought. No Way Man!!! That's stupid!  What does that even mean?!  That it's okay that someone hurt me like that?!  That I should be THANKFUL I was victimized because what....it somehow made me a better person?!  That is ridiculous and I refuse to even think of it!  I did my best to push any line of thought out of my mind that would lead me down that particular memory lane.  Then I paused in my run down the mountain.  I stopped and I legitimately allowed myself to cry.  That sobbing howling snot nosed cry of a broken heart.  I spoke out loud and told God I didn't want to even consider the possibility because I didn't know what that meant for me.

     I thought again of Joseph's story.  Joseph, who had every reason in the world to truly hate his brothers.  Joseph who chose to instead accept them and embrace them, not because he was okay with what they had done to him.  But because he recognized that his God was greater than any evil they could ever do to him.

     As I started my way back down the mountain again I began to consider the times in my life when I have been able to see another human being in pain.  That silent hidden pain that I know so well because I have lived through it.  The times when I have been able to hold out a hand in kindness because I could see a need that others might not be able to see.  What was done to me will never be made right or okay.  And I am confident when those souls who did such unspeakable things to a child stand before their creator He will have them answer for their actions.  But I am thankful that I can be free from making that judgement.  I am thankful that what they meant for evil can, if I so choose, be used for good in my life.  To make me more gentle, more loving and more quick to see someone who is in need of protection or care.  To make me constantly protective of the innocence and beauty in every child.

     I used to look at the internal scars of what happened in my childhood as a deformity of some sort.  What could I have been if they hadn't have hurt me?  I do not see them that way anymore.  It is not about what or who I could have been without those damaging experiences.  It is about what I am and who I choose to be in spite of what I have been through.  It's about recognizing forgiveness is not mine to give and knowing there is no harm that can befall me that my Heavenly Father cannot use for good in my life.