Too Much Thinking!

I'm up late and struggling with forgiveness. This is nothing new. I have come so far with it, and yet feel like I have millions of miles to go. I badly wish not to be hypocritical or inauthentic, yet try as I might I cannot get over things of the past like it seems everyone else in this world can. It's this heavy set of bricks on my chest, and currently the bricks are wet.

Fear. I try so hard to elude it. Fear controls my life if I let it. I really don't want to let it. How do you keep yourself and your family safe from potential pain or harm if you fully forgive, and forgive without another's repentance?

I try to remember that people were horrible to Jesus, too. Horrible. Mean, selfish, unforgiving. Liars. Jesus's mission was not to expose them, as mine would have been. He loved them regardless. He was not consumed when people spoke hateful things about him, when he suffered the consequences of others' untruth. Believe it or not, I try soooooooo hard to model that, and am very sadly unsuccessful most times. I would like to get to a place where I am content in not making everyone aware of the pain I have seen and experienced. It is just this huge sense of responsibility to justice that I feel.  I feel that if I do not use my experiences for change, in whatever form, the experience is worthless, and I am a victim. I am learning how to live happily despite constant reminders of nightmares I have lived through.  What a journey!  Bear with me.  I, too, am imperfect, just trying to find my way to God's heart.