Forgiveness

During the Relevant Radio interview on Tuesday morning, we talked about Anger and Abuse as one of the concepts in my book "Broken by Addiction, Blessed by God." I spoke about the anger which results from abuse as a major stumbling block to recovery for both women and men. We also talked about families who are challenged by addiction and the label often used about them as "dysfunctional." I try to refrain from using that label because so very often those families are doing the best they can while struggling with this very complicated and devastating disease. But the residual anger from the resulting abuse and denial has long term effects on many of the other recovery issues of self image, ineffective communication, grief, guilt, depression---and on and on and on.

A major point that we did not have time to discuss on Tuesday's show (but I hope we get back to on Nov. 5) is the recovery issue of forgiveness. While it is vital to acknowledge the abuse in our past, it is equally important to move into forgiveness as part of sustaining our recovery. If we remain stuck in the anger, the triggers for relapse remain lurking like a tiger in the grass.

In the book I use Desmond Tutu's model of forgiveness. In that model he talks about acknowledging the abuse and anger, never forgetting the abuse (it must stop with us), walking in the shoes of the abuser, coming to the reality that that was then and this is my life now. If we hang on to the anger, the abuser continues to win. When we move into forgiveness, we get to write the end of the story. We are no longer the victim.

Another vital piece of forgiveness is remembering God's forgiveness of us---for all the sins we have committed. Because God forgives us, we move into forgiveness of others. He "remembers our sins no more." Can we even imagine forgiving others in that way?

Blessings-Penny