Gauchay - Forgiveness

 

My Name is Gauchay Merrill, I am 27 and I have been married 4 years. I have two children, a two and a half year old boy and a one year old boy. I served a mission in Argentina for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I have a bachelors degree from BYU-Idaho in music, and I decorate cakes in my spare time.

I grew up in Nampa, Idaho, and lived here most of my life, other than the time I lived in Argentina. Serving a mission was one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. It was depressing and hard, but I loved it. My mission was the game changer for me, it changed my life from being a victim and allowing things to happen to me , to taking control, setting standards and deciding where my life was going to go.

 

  I grew up in a home with a really controlling father, I was always afraid to stand up to him. I also had a sibling, a brother, who was very physically abuse. Ever since we were kids I remember him being abusive, especially when we were teenagers, he left a lot of scars and bruises on me. He would threaten to kill me if I ever told anyone. I remember when I finally did get the courage to tell someone he cried and told everyone how sorry he was, until we were alone again, and the threats continued that if I ever told anyone again he would kill me. I don’t like confrontation, so I would try to hide from the situation. I would tell myself this wasn’t happening, or I would try to escape and get away, but I never took a stance and said “NO, you are not allowed to treat me like this!”

When I was 18 I finally went to a couple of siblings that were in the military and told them what was going on. I showed them the bruises, and they went and talked to him and told him that if he ever touched me again there would be consequences, like charges filed etc. It kinda scared him, and he respected what they had said and the abuse stopped, but the relationship was still very strained. He drove me crazy, and he would never admit to what he had done to me, that his actions were wrong. He would twist the truth, claiming I made it up, or that I was hurt by someone else and I was to afraid to come out against these other individuals, so naturally I would blame him. He made himself into the victim, and that angered me!

 

 

I remember one time, I was sitting in church and they were doing sustaining. This might have been on my mission or after my mission. There is always a part in sustaining someone to their calling where you get the chance to oppose the call. Nobody ever seems to oppose. For whatever reason though, there was this image that came into my head. 

 

 I was there standing at the judgement of my abuser, the final judgement in front of God. I saw that maybe they had done their best to live the commandments, they had done all the could to qualify for Heaven, and I am there to testify about that person. The Savior asks me “Do you want me to keep him out based on what he did to you?” For me, I immediately responded “no”, because their actions don’t change whether I qualify for Heaven. I realized that I could never say “ I don’t want that person in Heaven because of this thing they did to me.” 

 

It helped me realize that I am not a victim anymore. It helped me recognize that nothing anybody does to me in my life, no scars or wounds, emotional or physical, could keep me out of Heaven. Only I could do that to myself. It helped me stop being angry, and it helped me build that relationship with that brother, even though he still has never apologized and still denies his actions. It is a subject we avoid and I have learned to leave it in God’s hands, and his actions can’t effect where I end up. I am going to be with my husband and my kids for eternity.

 

 

Learning to let go helped me in other areas of my life as well. When I got married I wanted children SO bad! I ended up getting pregnant and was so excited, only to mis carry the baby. I found myself being really angry at God for that. On my mission I saw so many women who would get abortions when they got pregnant, even though it was illegal. I knew a girl who got pregnant on my mission who wanted an abortion, and I felt so angry at God that she was able to get pregnant but wanted to kill her baby, but me, where I had waited, I was being punished. I felt bad for being mad at God, I felt bad for how I was dealing with the grief. 

My husband was worried about me, he didn’t know how to help me so he called my sister in law and asked her to come talk to me considering she had experienced miscarriages as well. Her advice to me was that I have to let myself experience the feelings I was having, which I reply “ NO, because that would mean I am mad at God and that is not okay.” She replied “ Then feel it!" She explained to me that if I am always telling myself that I should not feel this way, then I will never address the problem, because you are not accepting what is happening. You have to allow yourself to feel what you are feeling so that you can then deal with the problem.

 

 

This perspective changed so many things for me. Instead of fighting those feelings, even in relationships and thinking “This is the way it ‘should’ be, I can now say, this is the way I am feeling about it.” I can then address it, and fix the problem. This has helped me so much. It helps me love others, helps me help others. I don’t have to fight what my feelings are, I don’t have to deal with the “ I should feel..” I just accept where I am and move on from there. So many of us try to ignore our feelings instead of processing what we are experiencing. When you process you can deal with the problem, you can heal, and you can move on. 

When I was a kid, I struggled with the Idea that Heavenly Father was a loving Father, in part because my own father didn’t always exhibit that love. Going through these experiences though I have learned that not only is God a loving Father but he knows what he is doing. I feel like my relationship with Christ is the same, he knows me. When I think I can’t handle anything else, he knows what I am capable of. I have learned that we just have to trust our Father and the Savior. I have found joy in the end results, but I have to go through the process of feeling the in between to get to that joy. I know that God has my best interest in mind. I didn’t know that as a child, but I do now. As long as I am obedient to him I can show him that I trust and love him as well.