Real Grace

I’ve realized after looking back over my posts that I have not posted about one of the most amazing steps in my healing - restoration.  Last summer I began a part of my healing process that I had not experienced up until that point.  I began the process of restoring my relationship with my 13 month younger sister, Michelle.

Allow me to give you some background.  You may have already read my post where I share my story and mention that I have 4 siblings; 3 younger sisters and 1 older brother.  The sister closest to me in age is Michelle.  She and I shared a room together our entire lives at home.  You might think that would be a special thing but it really wasn’t.  The both of us were dealing with so much emotional trauma and were very angry and took that anger out on each other.  Unfortunately, it carried on into our adult lives and 6 years ago we went our separate ways and became estranged.

I was very angry at Michelle for choosing not to see me anymore.  I thought that was the meanest thing she could do to me.  I thought she was jealous of me.  I thought, “She needs to grow up and get her life together.”  Well, I discovered that was not the case at all.  I started counseling when we were still estranged from each other and when I began to see how much of an angry person I really was I also began to see that I misdirected that anger.  I discovered that most of my misdirected anger was directed at Michelle. By going through the REAL Grace for Women curriculum, I discovered that when we’ve been abused we most likely will abuse others.  When I began to fully explore this, my past history with Michelle began to make a lot more sense and I began to see where I needed to take responsibility for how I had mistreated and even verbally and emotionally abused her.  I know that a lot of the damage that was done when we were younger was because of the abuse in our home but I realized how wrong the behavior still was and needed to take responsibility for it now, as an adult as well as take responsibility for my actions towards her as an adult.

So, last summer I mailed her a letter explaining this as best as I could and one month later she responded with a card with her home phone number in it.  We met for lunch one day and began sharing with each other what we have been discovering about ourselves and how our childhood has affected us today.  How amazing it has been!  I feel like I have a wonderful new friend who understands most of what I have gone through and am going through today.

I thank God every day for my new relationship with my sister.  I truly believe this is how He intended family relationships to be and I intend to make sure that it stays this way.