I wish I didn’t have to write this. I wish I could present scars to the world instead of the open, gushing wounds that I have to offer. I wish that being someone who God has called to help people heal didn’t mean I have to feel the immense pain I encounter.

It’s as if my soul screamed for 18 year old Keisha. It’s as if she were in that room again, that room where she felt dirty and confused. She was in that room alone, alone aside from the one person who decided to soil the one treasure she had left. Driving home I screamed, in a voice I didn’t recognize and from a place I had only previously visited once. Images that I convinced myself were a figment of my imagination flashed as true as 9 years ago when it happened.

But, they didn’t know. Nobody knew. I silenced my sobs so that my pain would not offend, I muffled the sound of my anguish so that it wouldn’t bother anyone and I moved forward. I’ve been healing in layers, and the deeper it goes… the more I feel depleted. There is an indescribable anguish that I felt that day, that day I can barely remember but can never forget. Tonight God told me, they didn’t understand. He didn’t know that he had taken something I fought to keep. This body, this special part of me was all I thought I had left, it was all that made me special. Only now, it wasn’t special. It was worthless. I was worthless. Her, she didn’t know either. She didn’t know that taking him back after would be like puncturing the flesh of a cadaver. The pain wasn’t there, but the damage was.

I wanted to forgive, but what was stopping me? The truth. I didn’t feel they needed to pay, I didn’t truly hate them. It just hurt. All of it just hurt. It hurt more than I know how to process, so I screamed tonight. I screamed for 18 year old Keisha who just wanted to know why. I screamed for the hurt I suppressed so I didn’t bother anybody. I screamed because it was all I could do. I screamed because even though I told God I don’t want to feel it, I don’t want to face it – I had to.

So, no I don’t have scars to show. I have wounds because as God reminded me tonight, I just don’t have the liberty of healing in private. Whoever I wrote this for, whoever this particular truth will set free – I love you.I pray that God will bring you to the point of anguish and desperation where your pain is unbearable. It’s unbearable because He bears it for you. He doesn’t want us to hide our pain, to pretend it doesn’t hurt or to try fix ourselves. He wants us to give it to Him. Tonight I forgive them, I forgive me and I ask you Father, “forgive them for they know not what they do”.

Live a little, love a lot, forgiveness is a blessing.