Pay It Upward
It is well known that almost all child abusers were themselves once abused as children. What is also happily true is that not all children who are abused grow up to become child abusers. Were this the case, then mathematically it wouldn't take but a few generations for the entire human race to be locked in an endless cycle of abuse. Thankfully, this is not the case. For every poor, broken soul who finds refuge in the justification that they are simply doing what they were taught and paying it forward by abusing their own children just as they had been, there are a dozen abused children who grow up with the burning conviction that they will never allow this to happen to their children. And it never does. What is it that allows one person, just as traumatized and emotionally scarred and just as ill equipped to cope with the complexities and difficulties of life in general and of parenting in particular, to break the cycle of abuse while another in the same condition gets trapped? This may sound trite or naive or overly simple, but the answer is forgiveness and love. If there is anyone who is justified in holding onto their righteous anger then it is the victim of child abuse. It makes perfect sense why such a person would choose to never forgive. It feels too much like letting them off the hook. It isn't fair that the relationship between a parent and a child, the one relationship above all that is supposed to be filled with love and kindness, is instead poisoned by physical or verbal or emotional abuse. The child shouldn't have to pay for the sins of the parent. It is true that there is nothing that any mortal man or woman could do would make it right or fix what has been so badly damaged, but thankfully, we don't have to rely solely on mortal men and women. Whatever abuse we have suffered - at any age - can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We can find hope and healing and, hard as it may be to believe, pure, unsullied, unbreakable happiness once more through the mercy and grace of our Savior's Love. His heavenly help comes at a high price, however. For us to be free of the abusive cycle we have been locked into through no fault of our own, we must forgive our abusers. It isn't right and it isn't fair but it is absolutely vital. If we do not want to perpetuate the abuse, if we do not want to force our own children to carry the baggage that our own parents forced on us, baggage that gets heavier and heavier with each generation, if we do not want to pay it forward, then we must pay it upward. We must sacrifice our trauma and our pain and our righteous anger and our fear and our hatred upon the altar of forgiveness. When Christ preached the Sermon on the Mount, He told any who would listen that they must love their enemies. And then, not long after, He showed them how. As they drove nails into His hands and His feet, He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He did this because He genuinely felt and believed this, but He was also showing His followers how to love and forgive their enemies. Christ would not allow His followers to make of Him the kind of martyr that would inspire and justify a violent and bloody revolution. The violence stops here, Christ declared. It is a high price to pay but I am willing to pay it. Forgiving our abusers is a high price, but if we do not pay it, then our children or grandchildren or great grandchildren surely will. We all have a choice to either pay it forward or pay it upward. We can justify our own crimes or we can hand our pain over to the Lord and say that we do not understand how He could allow this to happen but we are choosing to give up our pain and pay the price of forgiveness so that our children can inherit a kinder, less broken world.
