When your life experience includes one or more forms of abuse, being completely healed of the effects of that abuse can be challenging. When I first worked with a Christian Science practitioner, we talked together about my Father-Mother God’s great love for me and about my ability to forgive and move forward. At that time, that felt like an impossible task, but it did point me in the right direction. Eventually, a diligent commitment to a spiritual approach to forgiveness freed me from the results of mental and physical abuse, and I was able to live without dwelling on the past. 

However, further progress was needed. When my past came up during a conversation with a friend, I realized that for years I had been allowing myself to develop only friendships. I was closed off to anything deeper than that—so much so that I was genuinely confused by the prospect of dating. I realized that walling myself off had prevented me from completely healing the belief that I had experienced abuse, and I needed to let go of that. I tried to pray for myself, but couldn’t, so the next day, I called another practitioner to help me. 

She asked me to consider this quote from the Bible: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). She explained that Jesus is not asking us to hate those we love. He is asking us to hate the belief that we are mortals and accept that, instead, we are wholly spiritual as children of God, Spirit. This enables us to release ourselves from believing that we are mortal and to forgive ourselves for ever thinking that we were. I had never considered this type of forgiveness before.