When I first met Randy, his faith was intimidating. Every single thing the did circled back to his faith and I know that is how it should be but, for me, I was intimidated. I know I shouldn't have been but he was a reminder of what a christian is supposed to be. It was a reminder of what I was supposed to be. I was going to learn from him.
Randy saw the person I was before his diagnosis. We attended church together and we found our home church together. I attended bible studies and he would always ask what I learned from the classes. He would pray over our meals and at bedtime. We would ask each other to pray for our families or friends. Our faith was the center of our relationship because that is what it was supposed to be. However, my faith was shaken upon learning his diagnosis. I was often heard in saying, "Why would God bring me this beautiful man into my life and then threaten to take him? I don't understand!" To be fair, I still do not understand.
Randy had this misfortune of watching what his cancer did to my faith. He was worried about my faith. Two weeks before he died, he prayed before bed where he asked God to help me not hold onto grudges and to help me in growing in my faith. Initially, I was offended because Randy chose to go into spoken prayer where I was blindsided instead of coming to me and telling me that he was concerned about my faith. It wasn't until a few weeks after he died that I truly understood what he was saying and he was right.
Randy is probably the most forgiving person I have ever encountered in my life. You could wrong him and he would shrug it off in a heartbeat. He didn't hold grudges. I wish I could be more like him. I want to be more like him in this department. I want to be able to let things go and easily forgive people. Often where I struggle is when people disrespect my husband or our marriage. That's where I struggle. I don't know how to forgive those that hurt him. I don't know how to forgive those that disrespect him. I don't know how to forgive those that disrespect our marriage. Randy often said, "When you attack one, you attack both because two become one." When you attack me, you attack Randy. When you attack Randy, you attack me. You may not have agreed with our marriage but that doesn't change the fact that we were married and that we had such a happy marriage. Randy was my soul mate and I was his. You can't change that.
I have chosen to take steps to protect myself and Randy's memory from people who choose to disrespect us. Because I am the legacy contact, I control his Facebook and I have chosen to rid the people who disrespect him, me or our marriage because you dont get to hurt him in life or death. I won't tolerate it. I have had to get a restraining order because of death threats. I have blocked phone numbers and emails because I will not tolerate the continued hostility that has come from lies, deceit, hatred and manipulation.
Oprah once said, "forgiveness is letting go of the possibility that the past could have been in any different." I just don't think that I am at a place to forgive certain people. There has been so much hurt that has been cast upon me in the last 2 years. My journey from this point on will have to be learning how to forgive that.
How do I forgive those that hurt my husband?
How do I forgive that pain I saw in his eyes that hurt me?
How do I forgive the tears I had to wipe away at the hands of people who claimed to care about him?
How do I forgive the people that disrespected our marriage from day one?
How do I forgive people that spread lies all over social media both in his life and in his death?
How do I forgive the people that chose to believe the lies even when proof stared them in the face?
How do I forgive the death threats?
How do I forgive the theft?
How do I forgive the greed?
How do I forgive those that turned their backs on my husband?
How do I forgive the broken promises made to my husband?
How do I forgive the betrayals?
Randy's college friend, Meagan, whom I have had the honor to continue in getting to know told me that I should ignore it all because at the end of the day, Randy is at peace. Randy is in heaven and he doesn't have to deal with this and I shouldn't need to defend him. You're right. I shouldn't need to defend him and I shouldn't need to defend us. But I need to figure out how to forgive it.
If you have the secret, please tell me because I could use the advice.
I have no doubts that this journey of forgiveness may be a long one because every time I feel I am at a place where I can forgive and let go, something else happens.
Comments