Letting Go of Yesterday's Pain: Carol's Story

TRAPPED INSIDE

For years I felt the claustrophobia of being trapped in my life’s experiences. I never allowed myself to experience freedom from the consequences of my past poor choices even though I’d asked God to forgive me. Torn with regrets, I cried out from the depths of my soul, “Oh God, please release me from yesterday!” This was my daily cry to Him. Then one day I heard a distinct voice. It said to me, “It is time. It is time to tell your story!”

It’s been so long ago. Much proverbial water had passed under the bridge, so why tell it now? But after wrestling with my fears, it finally dawned on me that I had to tell my story because in telling it I would be released from my own personal baggage of mistrust, anger, resentment and fear that I carried for such a long time. This baggage had robbed me of the privilege of forming lasting relationships. So I rationalized that telling my story would give me the freedom to minister to others as well as liberation from the shame of my past life. I could now uncap the bottled up tensions and rise from the depths of low self esteem. Perhaps I could finally lay hold of those dark shadows that lurked in every corner of my mind and allow the light of God’s forgiveness to shine into my life.

I must admit that even though I’m at this place in my life where I am ready to share my experiences, I do have some post decisional dissonances that plague my mind. I still wrestle with the fear and the new shame that are by-products of disclosure. But the strong compulsion I feel to tell my story far outweighs any future or present fears.

It was a series of sermons preached by a visiting pastor at my local church that gave me the unction to share my story. The theme of the sermon series was “Work on me.” I listened to this preacher as he stood before the congregation in total transparency. His life as he told it, was dominated by periods of mistrust, unfaithfulness and ultimately divorce. I was moved by his passion, his honesty, his tears and his obviously surrendered life! I remembered thinking how awesome and forgiving God must be to grant us second chances even though we have betrayed Him so many times over. Nestled in my own thoughts as I listened to that minister, I thought of the gender biased society in which we live. So once more I recoiled from the idea of telling my story. I reasoned with myself “You’d better not tell your story Carol. A man can talk of his adulterous life, and his ultimate change, and people will forgive. It’s different with a woman. The stigma is hard to erase!” So I abandoned the idea, or so I thought. But I continued to receive very strong impressions from God. I kept hearing Him say to me, “You have to tell it Carol.” Again the battle of to tell or not to tell raged in my head; I felt like Jonah. I wanted to run from my own thoughts. I felt trapped in my own fears. Nevertheless, the urgency of telling my story was by far stronger than the stigma of the disclosure. More than that, the conviction of telling my story was beginning to do a work of subtle healing for me, because for the first time in years I began to experience a new type of excitement I’d never known before, it was the joy of being released from my years of covert pain.