Romans 12:19 (KJV):

“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but [rather] give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

Growing up, my mother always told me to give any and all feelings of anger or betrayal over to God. She was always a firm believer in the principles of forgiveness and ultimate continuum. Therefore, each time I found myself crying across her nurturing embrace, she always suggested ignorance over confrontation. In her eyes, it was better to prove them wrong through actions of humility than to glorify them through words of complacency.

I always admired her wisdom in these matters of revenge, yet questioned how she grew to find solace in prayer over opposition. Years passed, and still, I found no answer to where her acceptance of God’s vengeance over her own manifested from. However, as an age of mental maturity quickly sprouted in my youth, the veil covering my mother’s past was anxiously lifted from her mouth. I remember the day of her release as if it were only yesterday.

She picked me up from the bus stop to find me sobbing in the backseat of her vehicle. I could see the lines of worry quickly sprout across the brow of her forehead. When asked what was wrong, I hid my face in the palms of my hands, begging to wait until we were home to discuss my reasons for distress. She apprehensively agreed, turning her sights back to the winding road ahead.

After reaching the porch of our home, I dragged Mama to her bedroom, instantly closing the door behind us. Then, the tears became too much to hold back as they flowed down my face in streams of anguish and confusion. Almost immediately, she pulled me into the warmth of her arms, rubbing water from the rim of my shirt. Taking a deep breath, I removed my face from her chest and began my story.

Earlier that day, someone had hurt me, but not in a physical manner - it was only in a way of emotion. Therefore, after finishing, as if on cue, Mama once again told me to give my pain to God and prove them wrong through kindness. I had heard the same speech so many times before, only to receive no form of fulfillment. Therefore, this time, I became angry with her, lashing out in a fit of bitterness.

I yelled at my mother, preaching that she had never experienced true betrayal and hurt before; thus, she could not possibly understand what I was going through. However, my entire rant was proved to be in vain as she simply took my hand and sat me down on her bed, quieting my angst-filled hiccups.

This is her response.

“The hot-blooded and calculated revenge bestowed upon me, pulled me deeper and deeper into a world of oblivion. Each night, before I went to sleep, I spoke my childhood prayer. ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Please take the pain, betrayal and hate, and free me from this unbearable sorrow.’

I often wondered why this hypocritical, ruthless predator I called mom, hated me so much. Exacting revenge, simultaneously punishing me for what; insensibility, a daughter she did not want, a repeating cycle of abuse afflicted from her childhood memories, or just plain deceitfulness and evil only a deranged person can possess? Her pleasure, taken from my pain, was evident in the countless hours of revenge and manipulated torture she made me endure.

Every day seemed to melt more vigorously into the next. I felt lifeless, rejected, and most of all fear, for the beatings came daily. I always shielded my face from her punches, but the bruises from her fist covered the rest of my body like splattered paint. I often wore my hair in a braid, to keep her from pulling it out handfuls at a time. Vowing to take my life, she held my head under water, clawed my face until it bled, and hit my back with utensils heated in boiling hot water.

I felt trapped, as prey in a web, poisoned with infectious vengeance. My feelings of hurt intensified daily; I felt as if the entire world rested on my shoulders. Throughout the years, my mental and physical ability slowly deteriorated. My own true happiness was revealed in my dreams at night.

I know how revenge feels. For the first fourteen years of my life, I was tortured. I am scarred for life on the inside, as well as on the outside, and that will never go away. My main goal in life has always been to be completely opposite of the monster that she was. In the end, I won the battle of survival against my mother. My mother’s revenge on me represents who I am and the loving mother that I have become towards my own children: you and Meg.”

1 Thessalonians 5:15 (KJV):

“See that none render evil for evil unto any [man]; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all [men].”

My mother’s strength is the embodiment of Christianity as a whole. Instead of continuing the cycle of evil and abuse, she chose to break that very cycle and instead invest her heart into forgiveness and love. As the scripture 1 Thessalonians says, we should all turn from the act of seeking revenge for the wrong that is done to us, and substitute the wickedness of hate with unending goodness toward ALL of our fellow brothers and sisters of Christ, despite their transgressions.

Mark 11:25 (KJV):

“And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

For God to forgive us, we must first forgive those who have trespassed against us. I know that this logic seems cruel, or unjust even, for in our minds we wonder why God demands that we forgive our enemies before He will forgive our sins, but all Jesus’s teachings stem from the foundations of humility and love.

How can we expect the Father of all creation to pour the blood of His one and only son Jesus Christ over someone that sins and trespasses against His laws daily, yet when faced with the choice of forgiving his or her brothers and sisters their own tresspasses, chooses the option of evil by denying them that very redemption? That, in itself, is a wicked sin.

Leviticus 19:18 (KJV):

“Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I [am] the LORD.”