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Forgiving myself is a difficult thing as stated in Stepping Stone 4. I have an extremely hard time forgiving three people specifically in my life. I've been trying to find the right way to start the letter to my parents. They allowed abuse to happen under their roof while they neglected us children for an addiction. Due to the addiction neither of my parent's recognized my older brother was molesting me. My older brother has stated I was the one who wanted it. But what 4-year-old wants that? The other is my husband. He married me under false pretenses. He was hiding from so many lies that he was caught up in them so deeply he didn't know how to stop until he was caught. Trust with him is limited but growing because he and I are doing our journey and walk with God together now. Both parties are fully commited where he was only pretending to get to me. He has been home from jail for a little over two months and I see huge improvement in his spiritual walk with God. It took him reading step two and what the wrong music could do to him and hasn't listened to the negative music in three days. We haven't fought in three days. Which is a wonderful thing! I'm getting where I am able to forgive him little by little which for me is progress.
My parent's demanded I apologize to them where they didn't believe they were in the wrong. There is a long story to that one. As if you couldn't have guessed.
I don't speak to my older brother either. I do not wish any harm or ill will towards any of these people and function without them in my life. I fear bringing them back into my life would hurt my children. Since my brother is a sexual offender, of course not prosecuted, I can't trust him to be around my children. He has two daughters of his own also.
I've wanted to send my parent's an email with various youtube songs such as "I'm not who I was" Brandon Heath and "7x 70" Chris August. But I'm not sure that is what is important, though both of those song speak my truths. My mom subsequently writes a Christian article in the newspaper she works at and listens to Christian music. Neither attend church due to my dad convincing my mom she didn't need it. My dad is like the man described in 1stPeter 3, my mother devoted souly to him, showed him to believe in God. Though they read the Bible constantly, I'm not sure they, like many of us, understand it. I am glad to have a pastor that shows me what is being said through a new light. It is amazing and awesome to feel the Truth come alive in HIS WORD!
How would any of you forgive say my parent's or my brother? Forgiving and allowing them back in my life seems like what Jesus would want me to do. I need help in this. Suggestions are very welcomed!
God Bless you All!!!
~Bristollayne

Truth comes alive because HE LIVES!!

GBU

Real........

Please, Google forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the renunciation or cessation of resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offence, disagreement, or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution.[1][2] The Oxford English Dictionary defines forgiveness as 'to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offence or debt'.

The point is that forgiveness is letting go. There is spiritual forgiveness and that is separate from criminal forgiveness.

You should NOT connect forgiveness with contact. You do not need to have contact with your brother at all. That has little if anything to do with forgiveness. Forgiveness is giving to God what always was God's. And you definitely should not have him near your children.

Your brother had similar damage to what you had from your parents. Him controlling you was likely him seeking some sort of control and intimacy in his life. He was wrong, wrong, wrong. But he was also very likely hurt, hurt, hurt.

Allow yourself to weep if you haven't wept enough, and to be very angry if you have always told yourself you shouldn't. You need to get angry with permission. And then letting it go to God will be much more possible. And you will heal.

Take each thing. Go through the stages - remembering, weeping and mourning, anger, letting it go to God.

This is likely to take months. But if you do this - it will be gone for a long time. There will be triggers and it will come back - when it does, you mourn for a few hours, get angry for a little while, and then give it back to God. Recovery from triggers gets faster and faster. You may always need to take an hour of recovery after a trigger. But the rest of the time you should be okay.

Your parents are unlikely to be able to acknowledge that they hurt you. That is an unbearable amount of pain for them to accept Confronting them will likely only frustrate you. They will stare at you like you are insane. And that will hurt more than you can imagine. That is the usual result of confronting someone in this situation. I suggest that you skip that.

If you pray and God leads you to confrontation, then do it. Only then. This is advice - if you don't take it I still love you.

Hugs.

Thank you! I will take your advice. I have been discussing all of my steps with my husband. Who this morning while driving me to work stated for the first time that he was sorry. I accepted his apology. I don't think I could have if I wouldn't have started these steps. I like that I can forgive him. I like that him and I can work through this together. I am thankful God has kept us together so we can grow to know Him more!
I told my husband that I am going to forgive my ex-husband when we go into mediation next week. I am going to forgive him for how I was treated in the marriage and forgive him for the anger and hate he has towards me since I left. By doing this I know that God has the rest of it! That I won't have to revisit the pain I was caused there.
I thought forgiveness was about letting go and letting them back into your life as if nothing happened. I now believe that if my parents or brother were in a room and I was there I could let go of what they did but not resent them for being where I am. Is that true? Can we forgive someone without telling them and not allow them back in? With your explanation above I now believe it to be true. I can forgive. I can let go. I can leave it to God. I want my heart to stop aching because of the pain they have caused. I will follow your advice Dema. Thank you!

May God Bless You in Ways Never Seen with Human Eyes!
~Bristollayne

Research a bit - Google forgiveness. Convince yourself that what I say is true - not because I say it, but because it is true. And no, you definitely should not let the people who hurt you back into your life unless they have truly repented. And repented doesn't mean being sorry - that is another mistake people make. Repents mean to have changed. It means they were able to let God change them.

You definitely should NOT let them back in unless you are truly convinced they have repented and then I still would be wise.

The Bible tells us to be wise. Not silly about things.