Forgiveness does not involve trying or pretending to feel fine about things that are not fine– particularly trying to avoid bitterness about things that are bitter. That’s lying, and lying is wrong. Abuse is never fine. It’s always wrong. Forgiveness is not being a pushover or claiming that what the person did was all right. That’s lying. It’s never all right. Forgiveness is certainly not denying that someone ought to be punished or reported to the cops (depending on what they did). Maria Goretti’s attacker spent a long time in an Italian prison, after all, and that’s just where violent sexual abusers belong. Forgiveness not making sure that everything you say is sweet. Human persons never lose their intrinsic dignity as persons, of course, but they can choose to become very bad persons. They can choose to act like absolute garbage, or worse things I can’t say in a Patheos column– and it could very well be that the first step toward forgiveness is admitting that.
Forgiveness means that, right there in your pain and bitterness which are not your fault so don’t bother to try avoiding them, you find that part of you that actually is under your own control. And with that part, with your will, you will that, if it were possible, the horrible abusive person who did this inexcusable thing to you would stop being a horrible abusive person– that God would get through to them and make them something else. You can’t control that person and what they did to you, so don’t blame yourself. You can’t control your own feelings, and trying will make it worse. You can’t control your trauma or the pain you’re in, at least not right at that moment in the middle of a flashback. But when you reach the point that you can make an act of will, you will that this person would realize what they were doing, repent, and become someone who wouldn’t do that. And if you can’t quite will that somehow, you will that you could. Willing is enough. It’s the only thing under your control anyway.
As for prayer, that’s something else entirely. The Christian is baptized into Christ. We are the body of Christ. Our joy is Christ’s joy and our suffering is the passion of Christ. If you are in Christ, then when you suffer your suffering is prayer on behalf of all and for each. You’re already praying for your abuser when you suffer from the abuse they caused you. A person flashing back to horrible trauma is a person actively on the cross with Christ. A person crying out angrily to God about their trauma is a person reciting the Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani and a person suffering so much they can’t pray in words at all is a person silently enduring with Christ. This does not look heroic or virtuous. It does not look like prayer to us on the outside. It doesn’t seem like a godly thing, but neither did Christ on Calvary.
There are other forms of prayer, of course, but this agony is a prayer in itself. And if it’s all you can do, it’s enough.
Chiding a fellow Christian who is in the throes of a flashback to sexual abuse because they don’t seem very forgiving or prayerful puts you squarely in the role of the Pharisees who yelled at Christ to come down from the cross. You’re doing the same thing.
Don’t do that.
Be John and Mary, suffering with Him, instead.
Be the friend who is present silently, offering a hug or to sit with them or whatever they’d like. Be the friend who says “I’m sorry” even though it’s not very useful. Be the friend who checks up on the abused person and offers to do housework or bring meals, or other thing they can’t take care of right now because recovery is so painful and time-consuming. But don’t be a Pharisee. Don’t be the friend who chides.
Abuse survivors are already praying and on a path to forgiveness. We don’t need added shame– we’ve got plenty of that as it is.
Don’t be that kind of “friend.”
(image via Wikimedia Commons)
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