Article September 26, 2011 Issue

Father, what is forgiveness?

A woman’s journey from severe abuse in her marriage to forgiveness and healing.

Name withheld

After sixteen years of severe verbal and physical abuse in my marriage, I had finally gotten the courage to pack a few things and flee from home. I went to live with my aunt about 100 miles away and a few months later my husband filed for divorce saying that it was just “good business” to be the one that filed. He begged me to return and said if I didn’t come home, he would destroy me. He spent many years trying to do just that. If it hadn’t been for the sheltering of my aunt, I probably would have returned, believing that everything, again, was my fault.

My past seemed to taint everything. I realized that I was always on the defensive, carrying a huge chip on my shoulder. I also realized that in order to break through the fear and defensiveness to spiritual understanding, I had to forgive my ex-husband. But how? This task seemed impossible. But I knew that in order to progress in my own spiritual journey and to break through to higher demonstrations of Christian Science healing, I must find a way to forgive him.

In the years that followed, many fears began to surface, such as a deep fear of all men. I couldn’t be in a car or in my home or alone with anyone except my immediate family. Many other fears that I hadn’t realized began to surface also. One by one they were overcome through the study of Christian Science and the prayers of a devoted Christian Science practitioner who stayed with my case for many years of healing and discovering what, to me, had always been my pure spiritual status as the perfect daughter of God.