Guilt

I finished the book I was reading, Forgive and Love Again. It's a really good book. (Buy it, read it!) It got me thinking - how much was of this all was my fault, and how much theirs? I'm not 100% responsible, but neither am I only 10 or 20% responsible. I just don't know and I don't want to read through the e-mails on my altar; it would just be too painful, even if it might help answer that question. *sigh*

It hurts that they have never expressed forgiveness to me. I have said I'm sorry from very early on, though I didn't specifically ask for forgiveness at that time because I was in too much pain to care about niceties like that. So I don't know if they've forgiven me or not. Perhaps they were waiting for me to specifically ask. But it doesn't actually matter. God has forgiven me, my church has forgiven me, and I have forgiven myself. That is all that really matters.

What did my pastor and K talk about in their e-mails and that fateful telephone call? I can't ask her, and I'm too chicken to ask my pastor. *cluck, cluck* I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall for all that. Now that it's over, I feel embarrassed at all she told my pastor. It makes me want to leave the church, and I keep having to remind myself that that would not be a good response.

I need to know all this so that I can correctly assess my true culpability in this matter. :( Otherwise I run the risk of taking too much - or too little - blame. So this is very important.

Lord, show me the truth of how much guilt I bear in this. Teach me to pray for them as You would have me pray, not out of anger or other human emotion. May the Holy Spirit be in control of my prayers, Father. Amen.

She whom I used to worship still calls to me, offering what my flesh still wants. I have to focus on God's grace, mercy, and love. I have to remind myself that she tried to kill me once and does not truly have my best interests at heart. I have to continually renew my forgiveness by taking a deep breath and reminding myself that they are God's. Otherwise the anger will take over again.

Tuesday's devotional reading tells the story of my life this year, right up to the freedom I now taste. Here it is in part:

Psalm 118:17-19, 24 -

I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD.

The LORD hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death.

Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the LORD:

This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.