Making peace with the past

27 September 2020

Michelle found God, and freedom on the other side of forgiveness, after her marriage broke down.

My childhood was great. I grew up in a safe and loving environment. My mum ran the household of three kids and a husband. My father had his own business and was a great provider, although I would describe him as being a parent who was not present even when he was in the house.

My parents’ marriage broke down when I was 17. I was doing my Higher School Certificate (HSC) at the time. It was an absolute shock to me and my brother and sister. I’ll never forget the way my father announced it to us. He just said that he was in love with another person and was leaving. This moment set off a chain of events that, to this day, 30 years on, still has detrimental effects.

I stumbled through my HSC. I didn’t get to go to university and so I went out into the workforce and got a job to help Mum with the mortgage.

Six years ago my own marriage broke down. My son was five years old. I describe it as one of the most traumatic times of immense pain and sorrow in my life. Both my parents’ marriage breakdown and my own came as a total shock. These events pulled the rug from beneath my feet, really turning my life upside down.

Resentment came first, and then anger. I had fantasies about revenge on my husband and other awful feelings. That went on for a while.

The journey of forgiveness wasn’t something that just magically happened. I found that once I accepted that the past could not be any different, I moved into the space of forgiveness. I realised that I was hurting myself by not accepting what had happened in my marriage and the situation it had left me in. I was effectively staying in the same place of hurt, anger, resentment and hate.

So, it was a choice of which road I wanted to take. My counsellor spoke to me about forgiveness. She wrote on a piece of paper, “Forgiveness is not something you give to others, you gift it to yourself.” I still have that bit of paper. At the time, I didn’t believe that I could do it, and I probably didn’t want to even entertain it because I was that angry. Nor did I think I was worthy to give myself that gift. But once I let go of my fantasies of revenge and what might have been, and accepted the truth, I found that on the other side of forgiveness there is freedom.

I met Lauren (leader of Helensburgh Salvos, NSW) one afternoon, right at the start of my marriage break-up. I had just been on a walk in the bush. We got chatting and she said, “If you’re free tomorrow why don’t we try and go for a little run?” She was trying to get back into fitness and was looking for a running buddy.

And that’s how it started, this pathway to God.

She wasn’t the ‘pushy Christian’; she would always just talk to me about this ‘God’. And I was like, “OK, that’s nice, whatever.”

One morning Lauren and I were down at the local dam and I’d had a really hard – just a shocking – week. I remember just dropping to my knees, asking God if he could help me. I remember Lauren hugging me and saying that I was going to be okay. It was just letting God into my heart.

I just know that God has my back and he has a plan for me. I also love it that I can talk to God anytime, anywhere, and he loves me for who I am, flaws and all. It’s also given me a strength that I’ve not had before.

I believe that everybody has a purpose. There’s a lot of people out there who don’t think they’re worthy of that. Sometimes it’s up to others to help people see it.

As told to Major Bryce Davies, Salvation Army officer (pastor) in Sydney.