Guilt, the Quiet Killer

If you could go back in your past to a single point in time and change one action, what would it be?

17 years ago today I was a selfish, stupid seventeen year old girl. It was a cold winter afternoon in Iowa. My dad wasn’t feeling good so he was in bed for a nap. Maybe around 5:00 or 5:30 I wanted to go out to be with my boyfriend. I didn’t want to wake my dad – but I also didn’t want him to tell me I couldn’t go out – so I slipped out of the house quietly. He had a heart attack and died while I was gone.

I had just gotten certified in CPR. Could I have saved my dad? Probably not. But if I’d been there, perhaps he wouldn’t have died alone. At least my mom wouldn’t have been by herself as she found him, called 911 and had the operator walk her through CPR. It all could have been different if I had just said goodbye.

That’s quite a bit for a 17-year-old to handle. So I didn’t.

I shut down, denied and otherwise closed off whole parts of my heart because it was just too much guilt to bear.

Guilt is the recognition that we have failed to live up our own standards. We have done wrong or failed to do the right thing in our own eyes. And no one can tear us up like ourselves. No one can accuse us like our own conscience, and we have no defense for it. Over time, guilt builds up and if we continue to refuse to deal with it and forgive ourselves, we become ill in many ways; mentally, physically and definitely spiritually. Silently and invisibly it eats us away.

I often feel like guilt is the one area in which Jesus just could not know how I feel. After all, he never hurt anyone. He never cussed out his best friend or left a toy out that someone tripped over and broke their leg or ate a whole bag of Cheetoes in one sitting. He never used his freedom to hurt someone else. So how could he possibly know how I feel?

On the cross, Jesus became sin for us, on our behalf, in order the pay the price so we wouldn’t have to. When this happened, God turned his face away from him. He couldn’t look at his own son because he was so filled with sin – our sin. Jesus was guilty. Not just of my sin, but the sin of the world.

Can Jesus understand how I feel? Yeah….I think he can.

Years went by. Many years. And still I had refused to forgive myself and purge the darkness from my soul. I carried it around with me everywhere I went. Any time it tried to come up, I buried it. And I was good at it.

Then a few years ago my best friend’s mother died unexpectedly. I flew in right away to be with her. She’d been my shoulder so many times and it was my turn to hold her up. Little did I know what was about to happen.

At her mother’s service, I sat next to Lisa and held her hand. Suddenly my unforgiveness of myself could not be buried anymore. Lisa’s loss and the intense grief of those around me uncovered my guilt, and I was naked before God.

I dealt with more than 14 years of grief and guilt in front of everyone there.

And dealt with it. And dealt with it.

I sobbed so hard at one point I began choking violently on my tears. People must have thought I was insane – here’s this chick they’ve never seen before and she’s losing it like it was her mom. The harder I tried to control it, the worse it became.

At the end, I was raw. I was dazed. But I had allowed myself to forgive myself.

God bless Lisa for holding me up. In the middle of her own personal hell, she held me up and said, “Are you ok?”

And I was. I really was.

So if I could go back and change one thing…it would be to say goodbye before I left the house on January 20, 1995. It’s unlikely that I could have changed the course of events that day, but the burden I had to deal with would have been a bit lighter.

If you’re carrying guilt around with you I encourage you to try lay it down. God has already forgiven you - now you must forgive yourself. It’s painful and wretched to deal with, but the resulting peace is so worth it. Free your soul!