Abuse: Forgiving your Abuser and Yourself
Abuse is any behavior or action designed to control, intimidate, threaten, or injure another person. It is a misuse of power which uses the bonds of intimacy, trust and dependency to make the victim vulnerable.
Abuse can be emotional, psychological, financial, sexual, and physical, but is not limited to any one of these. Any misuse, manipulation, or exploitation of power for the purpose of controlling the behaviors, actions, thoughts, or feelings of another person is abuse.
Abuse is not only done by someone else but we can abuse ourselves with alcohol, drugs, cutting, and so forth.
You may feel like no one understands what you’re going through. Jesus understands, he was abused emotional, verbally, physically, but he forgave. “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Forgiveness is not denying or excusing the damage caused by abuse. We forgive because God forgave us. When we
forgive, we allow God to heal us.
Matthew 6:14-15 King James Version (KJV)14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
When we don’t allow forgiveness to take place we allow our pain to turn into hatred, unforgiveness, bitterness, and etc. Then we walk around broken hurting people that have done nothing to us.
Don’t allow the abuse you suffered to control your future. Keep moving towards God and your past will be just that your past. It doesn’t mean you will forget it just means your pain can be used to help others not abuse them.
