Emotional Prison or Truth Pardon?

Emotional Prison or Truth Pardon?

Emotional Prison or Truth Pardon?

Somewhere in the prison of my emotionally fortified cell I am hiding from the demons of horrific memories that paralyze me.

I can't move I have no ability to move. I am awake, I hear, I see, but I can’t move forward, to my right or to my left, or in any other direction than backwards.

I am taken back through the memories of my past as if a huge vacuum were sucking me involuntarily back, back, deeper and deeper into the pain and horror of that event.

An event not of my own making. An event that has taken me to dark places of pain and grief that I had not even know were possible to experience. An event that has been the door through which I have been trust into the horrors of pain and grief.

Compounded by the imagined pain of those I love. Who too have been thrust by varying degrees into this place in real life none of us chose or wanted to go.

The love I feel for a spouse, a child, a grandchild, a sibling, is measured only when I am placed in a position to experience emotional expression. Through my imagined understanding of their joy, heartache, pain or loss, I feel deeply and express those feelings through my words and actions. 

There is an everyday level of love I feel. Emotional attachment based on prior events and experiences with said person or persons. This level of emotional feelings can bring me great pleasure, satisfaction, pride, and many other varied emotions. It can also bring me great, anxiety, fear and pain.

My opinion of that person is rooted in my belief of who this person is and their motives toward me and others. I have drawn a conclusion of who they are.

I in essence have dipped them in the molten iron of my opinion and placed them safely in a spot of my choosing until they harden into the image I have created of them.

It is so much easier to face the consequences of my own choices than to be sucked into the vacuum of experiencing the choices of those whom I love. I know how I feel in the mist of the pain of loss. The emotional measure of my loss will be the base line that I filter the imagined loss of those around me, who too are experiencing this event with me.

How I feel or felt about the persons involved before this tragedy will only play a small part in my hardening opinion of who they are.

How I felt about me before this tragedy will play the leading role in how I respond to all of the previously iron dipped people walking through this time of great, pain and sorrow. 

Those who have been exposed not by choice, but by design. Design? Whose design? I am not sure of all the designers in this that is in production. I am only aware that there are many varying opinions. All charged with their own levels of emotional grief and pain. Their blueprints, scripts, patterns, are all making their way to me for inspection. Each one pleading their positional case as to the hows and whys we are experiencing this tragedy at this juncture in our lives.

My family recently buried our 88 year old father. He lived a long and full life. He taught us many things and was a man of great compassion. He loved his five children and had individual relationships with all of us based on our own needs and personality designs. He was compassionate and felt our pain and loss as most parents do. Daddy wasn't a man who would talk about the details of an event. If their was a misunderstanding between us, he would express his opinion right wrong or indifferent and then want that to be the end of the matter.

He would take up the cause of others and filter through his understanding who was right and who was wrong in said event. He, as most of us can, would get what I call a little snit on and then in a short period of time be over it. He just wanted peace in his life and the life of those he loved. He seemed to think that this peace came through not addressing the details of an issue, but just letting it go. I admire his ability to do that. But I and most of the human race cannot just let it go, without filtering it through the emotional reasoning unique to each one of us. 

Daddy would ponder within himself the details as he knew them, pray about it, form an opinion, sometimes he would express his opinion, but mostly he would just resolve the issue in his own mind, return to the relationship and behave as if nothing had taken place. If he was wrong, he would not address his misconception, he would just respond to me as if there had never been a difference of opinion. 

I am not wired like my father. I want things settled, talked out until I see the picture you hold of the event. I want to clearly understand where you are coming from and to be able to express my positional view of the event. I have to filter each thought and opinion through the truth as I see it. I try to look at the details and first of all check my own heart. Are my motives pure and fairly demonstrated? Did I do what I am being accused of? Is my motivation being filtered through the pain of another producing lies and half truths that color this time in my life with ugly and horror filled images?

 I can then choose to move over to their positional view of the event and look through their eyes, experience their emotional pain, feel the terror and anxiety filled thoughts they are trying to express through the words they speak. How they interpreted my involvement in this drama we are locked into is not based on how I feel but on how they perceive I feel. 

My husband and I are presently in a chapter of a ten year tragedy. One that didn’t happen to us, or because of us. A tragedy that happened to a family member in another state. A horrific event that resulted in the loss of another's life. We have been aware of the event. We have cried, prayed and consoled those involved. Feeling we were being a support. 

My nephew many years ago made a decision to drive after having a few beers. He was in an automobile accident that resulted in the death of another person.

These are the facts simply stated. I realize there are many, many layers and details tragically and emotionally incased in these simply stated facts. Many lives forever changed because of this one decision. Permanently inscribed on the history of those involved, directly or indirectly.

This happened in another state and we didn’t experience the daily news coverage, court dates, or varied public responses first hand. We didn't walk through the daily anxiety, fear and deep, deep regret that engulfed my nephew and his family. We only experienced this tragedy through the filtered information shared with us at the time. Information limited I feel to protect me from the intense pain my precious brother and family was experiencing. We cried, prayed, and grieved the horrific process that our nephews and my brother and sister in law were going through. The years of jail and probation, the decision to talk to other youth and share his story to try to impact others to not drink and drive. The daily feeling that everyone knew who they were and what had happened to them.

In my opinion my brother is much like my father in his processing issues and events. He is the most loving, tender hearted man I know.

He is non judgmental and is a peace maker. But he like Dad seems to want peace through the non talking method rather than through the communicational method. This is not wrong. It is just who he is, and I love him dearly. He would lay down his life for another in a heart beat and did for many years through his military service.

We recently through a retelling of another family event that did involve us, experienced a closer look at the pain that still exists in my brothers family’s lives.

Many years ago as teens our son who was 16 at the time and two other cousins one also 16, and the other in his early 20’s made a decision to drink after the funeral of our mother, their grandmother.

They were teens making stupid decisions they knew better than to make. We didn’t find out about the event until years later after our son Heath’s death. They were teens they made a choice and they did not suffer any ill effects or consequences from this choice at the time. It became just a story. One that my husband and other parents can relate to because of unwise decisions they too made as teens. 

Through the innocent retelling of this event there was triggered a deluge of unresolved emotions in my brother and his family. This event was mentioned several times by two of the other two parents of the teen cousins involved. My husband being one who had mentioned it a couple of times in different settings. He was completely ignorant as to how this mentioning of the last time we had seen our nephew was going to explode with a deluge of pain from another non related event. 

Our son, this cousin and another cousin decided to do some underage drinking. In my husbands mind this was just a story that was full of the grace of God that kept the boys from a dangerous outcome. My husband did not even have the tragic accident that our nephew had experienced as a young adult on his radar. Insensitive? Maybe, but how can you be insensitive to an event over a decade ago that you have never equated blame, guilt, or shame to? 

My husband has only pride for our nephew who has made a horrific incident into a testimony to other teens hoping to save lives from the choices he had made. In hindsight my husband wishes with all his heart these were the words he had expressed to his nephew, my brother and sister standing on the porch of our home, instead of re sharing the event our teenage sons and my sisters son were an equal party to so many years ago.

My husband didn’t even think about the alcohol in the story being a trigger that connected this story of teens saved from disaster to the event where alcohol was the factor that caused our precious nephew to have traveled a path that cost the life of another.

We cannot hide or deny the facts of the events that have brought each of us to this place in our lives. Yes, many of us, maybe all of us, have events we would like to forget. For me when deep emotional scars and great loss are not dealt with until you find the place of peace, we are tormented and will isolate ourselves from those who love us and wish to help us though the pain of the journey.

The emotions and subsequent reactions by my brother, sister in law or nephew were not inflicted upon them by my husband bringing up a teen blunder. They were in my opinion real and unrequited emotions that are still present, residue from the past trauma of this horrifically lived through event in their lives. I can only imagine it must be much like the doctor giving you the diagnosis of the return of a malignant cancer. The shock and sadness you feel when you thought it was over. But deep down knowing that it wasn't over yet. 

No matter how many times my husband tried to expressed the sorrow of bringing up the past teenage episode to my brother. He refused to even speak to him. The anger, pain, and sorrow they were conveying was really the result of the still healing wounds of our nephews life changing event. The people they were before the accident no longer exist. They are for ever changed, not by choice but by circumstance. I can not say I know how they feel. I do know how the sudden tragic loss of our son's life has impacted us. In some ways the pain I imagine my brother to be in is harder, because I don't know how he feels. My sincere desire to comfort him has no outlet and my heart is breaking for his pain.

In my opinion, emotions attached to feelings of such deep sorrow, guilt and shame, and a fierce desire to protect your child no matter their age, caused the responses from my brother. They most likely were from the things he feels others think and feel about that horrific time in their lives. So very painful to watch, knowing that they would still be safely tucked away if he weren't so vulnerable at this time with the death of our father.  And my husband had not inoccently retold the story of teens who made a bad choice many years ago.

Although painful in my opinion this incident has caused my brother and his family to have to take a fresh look at the trauma they experienced ten years ago and allow for another level of healing to take place in themselves. Or stuff those feelings and emotions deeper down where they don’t have to be thought about or dealt with. Blaming this fresh pain on the imagined motives of my husband and others who spoke of the event, will not lessen their pain or shorten the journey to wholeness.

This incident has also given my husband an opportunity to look at the way he interacts with others. To evaluate his insecurities and motivations, while honestly excepting the responsibility for his part. Not the part he was perceived to have played, but the reality of his own motives taken out and looked at for himself.

He was heartbroken that his words had caused an unhealed wound to be reopened. He is evaluating his own heart motivation and making or not making adjustments as he sees fit.  He can ask Holy Spirit to shine light on the dark places or he can continue in justifying his behavior by refusing to do the hard painful work of reconciling misunderstandings with the truth.

 I am proud to say he is asking Holy Spirit and our family counselor for advice. He has prayed, repented for anything he may have done wrong, even though unintentional. He has waited for the timing of Heaven, to contacted our nephew and ask him for forgiveness. Our nephew graciously received his uncles call and apology.

He was not as upset as my brother over the incident. He has worked hard to move on and is still filtering through his emotions. He stated to my husband that he excepted his apology and has forgiven him and would come to visit us and we would be welcome to come to see him. This statement alone has been a key that my husband can used to unlock the intended prison he was putting himself into and allow him the choice to receive the pardon from his nephew.

Our nephew also understood his father was trying to protect him and that he was a grown man and needed to deal with his own stuff. A lovingly shared statement from an adult child who loves his parents and knows he has been blessed to have them support him unconditionally through this tragedy. A wonderful young man who has lived with the horrible feelings that brought his parents and sibling to the point of having to deal with the issues related to his choices. He is in process and his progress is a true example of a man embracing life, complete with the emotionally charged feeling of the truth as to how he got here, and moving on toward wholeness. We are so proud of him!

We are so excited for the progress. We are also excited for the process. Painful as it has been to this point it has served a greater purpose in our lives and family. It has allowed us to see into the pain of loved ones and not judge their reactions based on the content of the present response they are having. It has allowed for dialect that has shared details of an event that has forever changed who my brother and his family are. It has opened a door for communication that has ask questions and allowed for statements to be made that has caused us to first hand experience the view of the other side of the room. We have reconnected with a precious nephew who had not been able to be around us, his extended family for more than ten years because of anxiety and fear of judgement and rejection.

What was meant to destroy relationships has been a catalyst to create new relationships and deepen the existing ones. My brothers emotions are yet too raw to be able to discuss his feelings and actions resulting from this event. I know that one day he will be able to, but if he never does I chose to love him and try to see where he is coming from through his pain.

This triggered another level of insecurity in me. I was devastated that this happened. I was torn with the emotions of the injustice of it all and the bigger picture of the painful journey my brothers family is on. I was hurt and angry that my husbands motives could be so misjudged. I was stirred with a level of desire to protect my mate that I had not experienced in a long time. I was furious that the enemy would try to inflict pain upon us as a family, as we were burying our father. I vented. I prayed. I sought a higher view than my own emotionally charged view and am in process of waiting out the final outcome. 

Wounded people are easily re-wounded. The invisible wounds on the inside of our soul man will manifest through the interactions of our daily lives. Will I recognize these wounds in my own life by the symptoms the negative emotions I feel, cause me to display? 

 I hope so. I want to. I so long to be whole and to help others find the answers, to their many and varied emotional responses. The responses which may be the expressed result of unhealed unresolved life’s wounds.I can fix no one. I can only apply the truth I have been learning to myself. I can allow the truth the Holy Spirit and each event brings to cause me to take a long hard, and yes, sometimes painful look at myself. Evaluate the feelings I am having. Separate them into proper files of truth and move on. Hopefully becoming a better person than I was when this part of the journey began.

Somewhere in the prison of my emotionally fortified cell I am hiding from the demons of horrific memories that paralyze me. I can't move I have no ability to move. I am awake, I hear, I see, but I can’t move forward, to my right or to my left, or in any other direction than backwards. I am taken back through the memories of my past as if a huge vacuum were sucking me involuntarily back, back, deeper and deeper into the pain and horror of that event.

An event not of my own making. An event that has taken me to dark places of pain and grief that I had not even know were possible to experience. An event that has been the door through which I have been trust into the horrors of pain and grief compounded by the imagined pain of those I love who too have been thrust by varying degrees into this place in real life none of us chose or wanted to go.

These words may describe an event that you can relate to. These words describe another event in my life, one we have walked through and that can help me relate to this present one. This is not the place I am choosing to stay, but it is the place I have been locked into in my past. I have experienced the reality of the above words in my life and they describe to me what family and many others may be experiencing.

Today I am unplugging the vacuum that has taken me against my will violently back to a place in my past. I am no longer paralyzed by fear of the unknown darkness of the past. I have chosen to get up and look into the future and receive the pardon that has been granted me through the courageous revisiting of the event with the light of truth shinning on it.

This event originally not of my own making. Filled with terror, pain and grief, trust upon my emotional man. Has been illuminated with truth. The details have not changed, nor the players. Just the power of the unknown to terrorize my mind and keep me incarcerated in a cell emotionally fortified with lies and half truths. I can be granted a pardon and be released if I choose to receive this free gift. Or I can stay emotionally imprisoned in the interpretation of the past and not progress into the light filled future set before me.

My husband and I are still unplugging from our own horror filled tragedy. Our son died as a passenger in an automobile accident. The driver was driving way too fast for the weather and road conditions. We do not blame the driver for our sons death. We are not stuck on the if only Heath had not gotten in that car, statement. No one made Heath’s choice but Heath. But we are living with the consequences of his choice. He was trying to find a better job to take care of his children. We are now raising those children. Their mother continued to choose drugs and the courts chose us to be their parents. We lived in an eleven year emotional prison.The grief of the loss of our son’s presence. The unimaginable choice of a mother who chose drugs over her children. Children who had various emotional and medical issues. Who we were, had died when Heath died. Who we are becoming is unfolding daily.

Emotional prison or truth pardon? One keeps me in a small confined enclosure constantly rehearsing the emotions of my past. The other frees me to walk out of the confinement, giving me free access to reconcile the details of the event by forgiving those, who through reason of exposure to their choices, caused me to lock myself away.

 Emotional Prison, confines me to a very small area. Where I can continue to rehearse all the terrible things that got me here.

Truth Pardon thrusts me into a vast and limitless space where I will have to deal with many more issues than the one said event. One will take endurance the other courage.

I cannot change the past, but I can embrace my part of that past that has incarcerated me in a limited cell of emotions. I can work together with the aide of the Holy Spirit and those who love me and truthfully embrace the process of being pardoned and choose to also issue pardons to others.

Pardons are not issued because the person is innocent. Pardons are usually issued because the one serving time has shown courage and intent to better themselves and help those around them. They have taken the deserved sentence, embraced the truth of their involvement and have exhibited an outward manifestation of an inward change.

Thank God, Jesus has made a way for us to be pardoned. We were guilty and imprisoned, He took our sentence with all of the shame and guilt upon Himself and will if I will allow it, set us free through truth. Now we can truly begin to live!

Footnote: I want to ask forgiviness in advance to any of my family members who may read this and feel I should not be sharing this personal part of our lives. Through the telling of my real life situation, my goal is to give honor to the God who has never left me or forsake me on the journey. These words are my limited view of the room. Not the only view, just my view.

Comments

My pleasure Deb. His ability to articulate truth in a manner that helps us to see where we are and where we need to go, will change us forever!

when I prayerfully read the insight into how the Holy Spirit see and interact to different circumstances in lives of people and the ability of explaining with love and compassion is life moving Thank

I know that God has given you words to explain things to people . I am very proud of you for this site and listening to God