Dear Abuser,

This year is the 20th year of my journey to freedom. I have some of you to thank for the initiation of my departure. the rest of you I met along the way on my pilgrimage to a place of freedom and healing. This letter has not been written "off the cuff", but has been paid for with the blood, sweat and tears of being broken, healed wrong, re-broken, reset, and patiently waiting for true healing to surface. The process of my healing from your abuse has taken twenty years of therapy, much love and patience of friends, learned patience and love of myself, and complete surrender. Most important, I would not be able to write this letter in love, without complete surrender to God as my true father, the love of Jesus as my friend, and the leading of the Holy Ghost as my teacher. They are the reason I don't hate you. They are the reason that I have no ill will towards you. They are the reason why I intercede for your restoration.

I FORGIVE YOU

I forgive you for being so offended by my skin color that you failed to see me as a soul. You groomed to believe that I was less than what God created me to be.

I forgive you for perceiving that the gender GOD assigned to me as weakness and an opportunity of your own manipulation.

I forgive you for choosing to overlook my own domestic violence so that you can continue to utilize the gifts of my family.

I forgive you for stealing from my family by creating albums of my dad's music without our permission.

I forgive you for blaming my fathers death on our spiritual lack.

I forgive you for bullying my family immediately after my father's tragic death.

I forgive you for publicly humiliating and fat shaming me from the pulpit.

I forgive you for the letters you sent out black-balling my family to every church that supported my dad.

I forgive you for trying to turn my dad's heart against us.

I forgive you for physically abusing my brother and spreading vicious lies about him to cover up your criminal behavior.

I forgive you for the racial trauma that I experienced from you, my classmates, your staff, and your evil spawn you led.

I forgive you for using my singleness and desire for marriage to manipulate me to enduring your abuse longer than God wanted me to.

I forgive you for allowing men in the church to take advantage of my mom (a new widow) taking her money while doing shoddy work on our home after my father died.

I could sit here for hours and write all the things that I forgive you for: the bad doctrine, abusive "love," racial trauma, verbal & spiritual abuse, overlooked domestic abuse, covered- up violence against my family, hatred, harassment, fraud, and stealing...

I FORGIVE YOU

In forgiveness, I am letting go of all of it with every habit and trigger associated with the wrongs you did (or allowed) to me. I am not allowing you to have access to me any longer. You will no longer inhabit my mind, spirit or actions. I am not interested in reconciling any relationship with you. Going forward, I will not cease to pray for each of you that you will know the true God who is love. I pray for each of your true salvation and repentance from your wickedness to Jesus. I also pray for the other victims of your crimes, grooming, abuse and manipulations: they deserved better.

The only way that I can forgive anyone is because the Gospel. The Gospel rescued me when I was dead in my sins; giving me a new heart, mind, and soul.

A MESSAGE FOR THE ABUSER AND THE ABUSED

God is the Healer. The same God that rescued me while I was dead in my sins, can rescue you--IF you allow Him to. Jesus is standing with arms wide opened waiting for you to just call on His name, and receive the life changing love that He was for you. The only way to change is THROUGH Jesus. The only way to be healed from all trauma is THROUGH Jesus. The only way to redeem everything that was stolen from you is THROUGH Jesus. They only way to forgive is THROUGH Jesus. The only way to walk out of the fires of trauma unburned is THROUGH Jesus! Abundance can only happen through JESUS!

Believe. Receive. Repent. Rebuild.