the relief before the relief

I couldn’t forgive a person for nearly three years, and I talked about it a little bit in the mercy discussion on the Salt/Light Instagram. Sharing about it here didn’t seem necessary; that is until this morning in my “prayer closet,” aka the shower. Today, my mind was heavy with grief and a need to hear from God, and let’s just say I had an “aha!” moment that will make sense later.

Shall we begin?

To start, I wasn’t having the best day. I woke up feeling insecure, questioning my worth. "You’re not needed; your presence is unnecessary.“ However, there was work to do, so I pulled myself together as best as I could and tried to manage my thoughts.

My perception of everything leading up to when I first met this person — let’s call her Ann — only encouraged me to feel worse. The voice in my mind telling me how unlovable I was, taunted me every time I’d open my mouth to say something just to get no response. “You’re not loved.” As the day went on, the thoughts got louder and louder. Ann said something that offended me. “You’re not seen.” I sensed weird energy from another person in the room.”You’re not wanted here.” Ann said something small that I took personally. “Your voice doesn’t matter.” I tried to help but didn’t feel like much help, so I gave up. “You don’t need to be here.” Someone did something, which led someone else to say something that directed my thoughts to a specific pain. “You’ve been forgotten.” The pièce de résistance was the very last thing Ann said. She mad a “joke” about something most dear to me. “See, I told you.”

Consider the way a violinist prepares a violin before playing. The instrument of my pain picked out by an enemy with one goal in mind. Violin in hand, it began to turn the pegs one by one. Once the strings were at the perfect tension, it fine-tuned the sound, sat down, picked up the bow, and played one note: E9. The fine-tuning left a high-pitched screech buzzing in my ears as it reverberated throughout my heart and mind.

The firey arrows of the enemy cause heart wounds and the ones that reach the depths of our hearts take the longest to heal. See, I knew each thought was a lie, but they were difficult not to believe because of the pain being caused and revisited. That day, every hurt I’d ever felt came boiling up, and it was difficult to handle. All of the wounds I thought I healed from were now completely fresh and bleeding out, and I didn’t know what to do.

If you watched the IGTV episode, then you’d know how Ann’s existence affected me -- yes, I said existence. Being around her made my body feel weak; my stomach would turn, and my heart would drop. Any mention of Ann made my blood boil, and the thought of her caused me to sweat, feel sick, and not think straight. I tried being cordial and dismissing my feelings, but that made it worse. I even had to block Ann on social media so I could avoid her. Avoidance is the defense mechanism of my ego that convinced me it was the only way to process through my pain.

Truth? It wasn’t. Talking about it was the only way, but talking about it isn’t always easy. It wasn’t ever easy. My shame for being so affected by someone made me deny it. My fear of rejection for being “too emotional” made me pretend I was okay. My past experiences with betrayal made it impossible to trust. My pain needed to be treated with a pill that was too hard to swallow, and I didn’t want to take it, no matter how much it could help. I thought the pain would pass on its own like it used to, but with each year that passed, I couldn’t stop living in it. I had to talk about it, and I talked about it for three years because I was avoiding the problem and not addressing my need.

My problem with Ann wasn’t Ann. If it were, I would’ve been okay when it was brought to her attention — by another party — that I was hurt. The gag is, I wasn’t. I felt worse. My actual problem was my suffering from heart wounds I never treated. I needed to grieve, I needed to feel, I needed to let the healing process run its course, and let each one heal properly. No matter how much I wanted to rush it, no matter how much I wanted it to be over, I needed to confront my pain, address the problem, and reconcile it. That process took a total of three years.

Afterward, she crossed my mind every so often, and I knew why: reconciliation. I’d considered reaching out and thought it would be weird given how long it had been. I tried to avoid it, and the thought always came back. My grief passed, and it was time to move forward. Earlier this year, I reached out to Ann and said my peace. I forgave her for what was said and done because it’s all worth forgiving. I also apologized because the bitterness and mistrust I held in my heart against her were not okay. Did she respond? No, but that’s completely fine. The forgiveness wasn’t just for her; it was for me too.

My perceived problem was a person; my actual problem was missing the mark: my heart wounds. My perceived need was to avoid them; my actual need was to face them. Now, for the “aha!” moment I promised you:

That experience with Ann caused me great pain for sure. I was mentally taunted, emotionally vulnerable, physically distressed, all the while trying to hold on spiritually. Those three years of talking, thinking, and feeling through everything that came up was not fun — it was terrible, frightening, painful, and at times discouraging. My lack of emotional control made it easy to think that giving up on the process was the best option. That’s so far from the truth. Mercy was the best option. Do you know what those three years gave me? Mercy.

My heavenly Father saw my wounds, all of them. He knew the oldest ones and the newest ones. He knew how deep they were and how hard it would be for me to face them, so He gave me His patience. His patience gave me time -- time to talk, to think, to feel, to cry, to worry. In all that time, He gave me promises. His promises gave me hope, courage, strength, comfort, peace, and assurance. All of His promises reminded me of one thing: He will not forsake me. His mercy carried me through my grief and into the healing I needed, and He wasn’t ever in a rush to complete the process. He deliberately, intentionally, and lovingly treated every single one of my wounds, addressing each one by severity and then by origin. He encouraged me when it was difficult to be encouraged. He was gentle, even when I wanted to be stubborn. He hid me when I was afraid, and he fought every single enemy that tried to come near. While I grieved, He was my shepherd, my physician, my therapist, and my friend. When my wounds healed, He became my accountability partner and urged me on to the last step of the process: forgiveness. All of that was His mercy.

Mercy is the kindness and compassion of the Lord to relieve us when we are afflicted. There’s no limitation to that. We are afflicted by a multitude of things every day: worry, restlessness, anger, discomfort, hopelessness, stress, [all] pain, rejection, betrayal, and the list goes on. God desires to relieve us of the grief that’s afflicting us today and every day to follow. His compassion for us leads him to action, and that action leads to a process. Whether it takes three years, three days, three hours, or even three minutes, His mercy will always be the relief before the relief.

What do you need relief from today?