What must I do to be free?

The other day when I was going through my old therapy journal I found this entry and I thought it might be helpful to others. Forgiveness is so exceedingly crucial to the healing process and it is my hope and prayer that you may ask and seek the grace to forgive those who have harmed you.

Sometimes the pain feels like it’s about to suffocate me. I try so hard to breath, but I can’t escape the weight of the pain. I breath in and out and the tears come. I let the tears come, like the morning welcomes the sun, because through them I know this pain is real. I know I need to face the past, no matter how traumatic it was. If I don’t own it, I will never heal and be free. I desire to be free with all my heart because the weight of the pain is unbearable. I want to feel love, authentic love. I want to be able to be vulnerable with a man. I want to get married and have children. The nightmares are frightening and I lock the door to try and keep them out. The lock doesn’t hold them back and I wake up with tears that won’t subside.

What must I do to be free?, I ask between sobs. From a voice that is gentle and safe I hear, Forgive Maura.

Forgive. But why? I did nothing wrong? Where is the logic in forgiveness?

And the same voice said, Tell me where you see the logic in the Son of Man dying on cross for you? 

Love defies logic.

To err is human, to forgive is to mirror the Divine. – Alexander Pope