My dear friend,
You wrote to me: “I feel perplexed and disappointed by the shock of someone whom I once deeply respected and admired, someone I looked up to as a role model. But then one day, I discovered their secrets, and suddenly I felt disgusted. Everything seemed to crumble apart…”
Friend, you might ask many questions:
“How could they do such things?
How could they live such a double life?
How could they trample on my trust and affection like this?”
Perhaps everyone in your situation would feel “disgusted and disappointed,” just as you’ve described your emotions. Your trust has been shattered, and perhaps more importantly, your feelings and emotions have been deeply wounded. Memories of a time when you admired, loved, and supported them now seem like a play where demons disguise themselves as angels. They betrayed your love and expectations. And worse still, it affects your trust in people, in kindness, in the beauty of life itself. The lens through which you view life now feels obscured by a dark fog of deceit. Do you see yourself as a victim of shattered faith in humanity?
I’ve recently been in a Retreat with themes like Compassion, Forgiveness seventy times seven, and Witnessing of Hope.
Perhaps this is God’s intention for me to have these topics to share with you today. Firstly, it would be doctrinal to demand immediate forgiveness from you for that person. That seems impractical and not the starting point we are invited to consider.
But perhaps the more important starting point is within your soul, within your heart.
Do you feel pain, exhaustion, drained of energy?
Do you feel your quality of life is affected daily, in relation to everyone around you?
In some way, do you feel trapped in a room of anger, pain, tormented by misplaced trust?
If you feel these things, they are natural emotions that are hard to avoid.
We are human, with hearts of flesh, knowing pain and hurt. All wounds take time, don’t they? Knowing that you are hurting and the reason. That’s recognizing your pain, courageously not running away. In fact, you can step into a quiet church, confide that pain to God, to our Mother, or your patron saint. You can also share this pain with your mother or sister, aunt whom you trust about the emotions you carry.
And perhaps most importantly: Ask your heart what it truly needs?
I, your family, those who love and care for you, are here with you in this crisis and join in prayer with you to God. And I believe that God understands you better than anyone else because He too received the kiss of Judas long ago.
With love,
Little-pencil
PS: “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.” – St. Augustine –
Little-pencil 