Last updated on August 2, 2020
Question
Is it okay for a victim of past sexual abuse to just let it go and move on? My mother says that you have to fight back to help others who might still be being abused, even if it was a long time ago and the memory is hazy, incomplete, and possibly wrong. Trying to remember just makes me depressed. Will God forgive me if I just put it behind me and do not try to remember?
Thank you.
Answer
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
Dragging your past along with you isn’t healthy. There is nothing wrong with helping other abuse victims, but you can do that without personally revisiting your own past.
Forgetting is the best thing you can do, provided you actually do leave it behind. Sexual abuse can cause people to behave oddly because they don’t really leave the fears of what happened to them behind. I’m assuming that is not the case with you.