Like Harriet, I have been angry for a while,
and didn’t know what to do to get my joy back. I tried talking to the husband
about it, but we always ended up in a huge brawl. I talked to my mum about it,
she advised to ask for the “fruits of the spirit”. The church echoed the same
thing.
This article really helped me. I now see things in a different
perspective. I am a lover of Christ,
a bible believer, I believe God answers prayers, BUT in the case of anger
and forgiveness, I now realize that praying for the hurt to “disappear” is
foolish, ignoring the pain is harmful. I
have to embrace the hurt, and CHOOSE my response to it.
In the article, the following stood out for me:
1. “Forgiveness is at heart a
choice, one that any of us can make at any time, no matter the
"content" we're wrestling with.”
]
2. “Forgiveness doesn't mean rationalizing or condoning abuse. And
forgiveness doesn't mean a sudden case of amnesia.”
3. "Forgiving enabled me to realize I could create my own
path," she says. "I wasn't just plopped down on this cruddy path I
had to walk the rest of my life. I was in control."
4. “Forgiveness, I begin to
see, is not about pretending you don't feel angry or hurt. It's about
responding out of kindness rather than rage. It's about letting yourself feel
the full spectrum of emotions—grief and anger and hurt, but also kindness and
compassion. Even toward someone who's hurt you deeply.”
5.
"Forgiveness is giving up
the hope that things will turn out other than they did. Is there any place in
your inner life where you can't accept that things happened as they did?”
Today I admit that I have been
angry and bitter for a long time. Angry at:
1.
Myself for spending so much time “waiting to be
married” after dating the same guy for 7 yrs,
2.
Myself for embracing the notion that a woman is
incomplete without a man,
3.
Myself for being caught in the deceptive
cultural web of marriage being the next step in a woman’s life after college
education,
4.
Myself for not being courageous enough to break
the relationship long before it got to this point,
5.
Myself for allowing me to be so consumed by a
bad relationship, unmet expectations, and all that come with it,
6.
The society (Nigerians especially, including me)
for making unmarried women feel like they are defective,
7.
Myself for expecting so much from marriage (such
as being loved, taken care of, e.t.c) thus being incapable of accepting the unpleasant reality,
8.
Myself for compromising in areas I should never
have,
9.
Myself for spending so much time being angry,
10.
The church for not offering practical help to
issues like this, rather asking me to pray so the spirit of anger is “taken
away”.
I am happy:
1.
To have found this article,
2.
To learn that it’s not just me, many people experience
this raw emotion called anger,
3.
To learn that the fact that this anger has not “disappeared”
after all the prayers and deliverance sessions, does not mean I am severely “possessed”
by the devil,
4.
To feel hopeful again,
5.
To learn that is ok to be angry (does NOT mean
it’s ok to do evil just because I am angry), it’s okay to grieve, it’s ok to
cry, it’s ok not to have forgotten events of the past,
6.
To learn that forgiveness is about MY RESPONSE
to things that hurt. I am in charge here.
I am very hopeful. I feel like I have
taken a first step in the right direction. This is the best article I have read
in a long time!! Thank you Oprah! Thank you Harriet!
