The New Year is an opportunity to start afresh but it will be impossible to do so if we still carry heavy weights into the year. As women, our hearts are often so tender and in many cases, we easily get hurt. It is important to do a thorough heart check and release those who have hurt us so we can walk fully in our calling. As the new year begins it’s time for us to say I forgive You. It’s time to forgive and let go. But How? After all that was done to you? After the pain? The shame right? In this article,
1. I share my own personal experience of the intense pain and hurt I experienced in 2021
2. How I let it go and how the Book I Forgive you by Wendy Alsup brought deep understanding and helped my healing journey.
3. Some of the Lesssons from the Book – I Forgive you.
*You can get a copy of the Book from The Good Book Company UK, US, Australia and If you would like to study more on this topic, there is a YouVersion Bible study Plan.*
Morolake Ojuola
Isn’t it true that those closest to us are the ones who sometimes hurt us the most? In 2021 I experienced my own “ambiguous Loss” in a deep and profound way. I wondered how a relationship of more than 30 years can break down in a twinkle of an eye. It was painful and I was broken beyond words can describe. I cried ugly hot tears. Infact, I didn’t just cry I wept like a baby because all that I value and respect was dragged in the mud. In the words of Wendy Alsup, “I functioned but it was a head-down-persevering-against-the-Storm kind of functioning”. I just had to keep going. I needed to keep showing up for my child, my family, my siblings. I had to smile when I was crying internally. I had to go for walks in summer to keep my son busy when I truly wanted to stay in the dark and cry some more.
Many nights after I had carefully tucked my son to bed and my husband was fast asleep my eyes would be wide open, with several thoughts racing through my mind. I had panic attacks, anxiety attacks all together in one for I have never experienced this level of public disgrace and “dragging”. One night when I couldn’t sleep, one of my senior friends reached out to me. She said she sensed that I was carrying a heavy load. This was about past 3 am at night. As she chatted with me, I cried all over again. She spoke in a deep way to me. Only after her chat and a song she sent was I able to go back to sleep in the wee hours of the morning.
The truth is many of the things that my family and I were accused of were not new but as children, we have carried the weight of these things as they are beyond us. What really can you do when things are beyond you? We have only taken lessons to personally do better.
Being reconciled to our enemies, or our loved ones is not about pretending that things are not as they are. It is not telling your opponent that what they did was ok or turning a blind eye to the harm they have done. Instead, true reconciliation begins by facing head on the horror of the acts of conflict.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Anyway, I found it very difficult to let go in my heart. Every time I tried, I would remember the entire drama, my mood will immediately change. It was more difficult because God had warned me ahead in a dream to not react to what was coming no matter what was said even though I could match the words and hit back. This made me even more distraught. I was angry with God and everyone involved.
Forgiveness was not on the table. I was going to “show them” whatever that meant. Lol. The more I strategized on how to “show them” the more I struggled and doors were slammed at me. I knew I had to forgive. But how?
One day, I found the courage to let it all go. With tears in my heart, I wept all over again. I cried out to God, knelt down, and said it all to him, I told him exactly how I felt without mincing words. I told him how broken I was, how I felt he watched all the drama happen and did nothing. I told him he abandoned me. He abandoned my siblings and I even though he knew we were trying so hard. Then I asked him for healing. I asked him to make me whole. He heard me. He listened. In the coming days, he began to lead me to messages and resources. It started with the message by Pastor Paul Adefrasin – Sit Down, this is your Reigning Position.
By December, I got the Book – I Forgive You by Wendy Alsup from The Good Book Company and finally, I could understand my loss better. I could understand why even though I had forgiven, I grieved the loss of a precious relationship that meant so much to me, but for peace of mind and to avoid trouble of any sort, I had to let go. It is called ambiguous loss. Hmm – A kind of Loss without a culturally recognized way to grieve or reach closure. An example is a Divorce or estrangement from Family. It can involve physical absence with psychological presence. If you are struggling with unforgiveness, this Book “I Forgive You” would help you gain perspective and possibly help you understand your loss better. Wendy uses a deep Bible-based perspective and her analysis was so well thought out. Not only did she use Biblical examples, but she also shared her own raw pain. A divorce she never wanted, the pain of losing a community she had invested so much in just like that, a painful cancer diagnosis and so much more.
I came to the conclusion that God is a master arranger and planner. While Wendy was struggling to move to a new environment after she had to leave all the investments she had made, God had gone ahead to make room for her in a new environment. Just writing this part, I am excited. You need to read the Book! Wendy Alsup takes a deep dive into how to handle this very sensitive topic. She doesn’t just say “Let go and let God”. She helps us Process the loss using the lens of stories from the Bible in a practical way that keeps you glued to see how she weaves it to the end. She pushes through the emotional roadblocks and helps you name the loss. Only after reading her book could I truly understand and name my Loss. I re-lived the story of one of the key characters she used in the book – Joseph or Bro J as i like to call him. She talked about community, healing, reconciliation, restoration all from a human, personal perspective.
As I conclude the Book, I am choosing to Forget. Not that I am ignoring what happened, not that it didn’t happen, but I am choosing to forget. A kind of forgetting that embraces what lies ahead. I am taking a step forward to forgive. To stop waiting for anyone to come to get me in the middle of the ocean. I am paddling my own journey with God. I am standing on land where before I could only see ocean, I am seeing seeds to plant and fruit to harvest where before I could only see storms and waves. Thank you, Jesus!
If you would like to study more on this topic, there is a YouVersion Bible study Plan and you can also get the Book from The Good Book Company UK, US, Australia.
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