📖 Sacred Testimony III

“The Door I Slammed the Truth I See Now”

offered to the ones still carrying the child’s anger, waiting for it to soft

I was an angry child.
A door-slammer.
A word-twister.
A sensitive heart that turned pain into fire
before I even knew what pain was.

I didn’t understand my parents.
I didn’t understand myself.
Everything they said, I took the wrong way—
as an attack, a punishment, a lack of love.

I couldn’t take a joke.
Their teasing felt like knives.
Their discipline felt like rejection.
Their rules felt like a cage.

I told myself they were mean.
Too strict. Too cold. Too hard on me.

I couldn’t see the long hours they worked.
I didn’t hear the fear in their voices when they told me no.
I didn’t know that love can look like boundaries.
That care can sound like correction.
That protection doesn’t always come wrapped in softness.

So, I pushed them away.
Yelled.
Rolled my eyes.
Slammed doors.
Built walls they didn’t deserve.

And now—

Now I know.

Now I know they loved us.

They weren’t perfect.
But neither was I.
And I see now that much of what I called mean
was actually them trying their best.

They didn’t always say the right things.
But they showed up.
They fed us.
They clothed us.
They worried about us when we didn’t come home on time.

They wanted better for us.
Even when we didn’t understand their ways.
Even when we fought them every step of the way.

They loved me
even when I made it hard.

🌿 And here I am now—

Older.
Wiser.
Looking back at the child who didn’t understand,
and whispering to her gently:

“It wasn’t hate. It was love with limits.”
“It wasn’t cruelty. It was care in hard shoes.”

I forgive them.
I forgive me.
I thank them.

✨ A Blessing for the Angry Child Who Grew to Understand

May the child who slammed doors
be wrapped in forgiveness, not shame.

May her anger be seen
not as rebellion,
but as a heart that didn’t yet know how to speak its need.

May the parents who seemed too strict
be honored for the love they didn’t always know how to show.

May every moment of misunderstanding
be softened in the light of time.

And may the echo of slammed doors
be replaced now with open arms,
and the sound of grace
settling into the spaces where regret once lived.

You are not who you were.
And they were doing the best they knew.

Let peace rest in the space between.