Getting over it - finally

Tonight, the Watoto Children's Choir came and performed at my church.  This is the third time that I've seen them, and once again it amazed me how incredibly joyful and uncynical all of these orphans were.  Each and every one of these children has lost one or both parents, many having never even met them.  Their parents and other relatives were killed by war, disease, or HIV/AIDS.  Compared to my life, each of these children have been through hell and back.  Yet I am the one sitting in the audience continually fighting my own cynicism and bitterness.  They who have every reason to be bitter were standing up there singing their hearts out about their love for Jesus and the fact that they are not alone.
This amazing spectacle was immediately followed by Pastor Mark giving a sermon on Parenting.  I instantly knew that God wanted me to deal with my own heart, as my own experience being "parented" is at the source of a large portion of my bitterness and cynicism.
I have two of the most amazing parents in the world, who loved me and raised me with more love and care than I could possibly hope to imagine, and yet I struggle all the time with bitterness and anger towards the way that they raised me.  It's not their fault.  I am perfectly reconciled with my parents and their incredible love for me.  But I am still unbelievably bitter towards the primary source of their parenting ideology.
My parents are disciples of and leaders in a parenting ministry called Growing Families International.  While I truly believe that the hearts and motivations of the ministry's founders and leaders are perfectly good and right, I still harbor such resentment regarding what it did to me.  Because of the methods espoused by GFI, I grew up believing that I had to lie my way through life, constantly pretending to be this perfect little girl who was so far from the person I truly was.  Instead of ever changing my heart, my parents were constantly correcting and molding this facade which I chose to show them.  And every time the true me broke free, I was corrected and punished at length, hearing every single reason why these actions, this real me, wasn't ok.
Even while I'm writing this, I shudder at the person that I used to be, at the anger that I still hold.  I have to let it go.  I have to get over it.  I want so badly to be able to speak into GFI, to affirm in them what I think they're doing right and to be able to loving tell them which very specific areas they may be erring.  But when I even contemplate talking to anyone related to the ministry, bile rises in my throat, and I have to fight back the anger and bitter criticism.  I have no clue how to forgive, how to forget, how to stop blaming them (not my parents, but the ministry).
And GFI isn't the only thing which I harbour resentment towards.  My highschool.  My hometown.  My old youth group.  My old church.  Christianity in general.  Every one of these things, I hold captive in my bitterness.
I could go on and on about how deep my resentment runs, about how completely cynical I have become.  But none of that compares to the stark contrast I felt tonight while I was sitting, wallowing in my own bitterness, watching the beautiful, joyous, and carefree faces of the Watoto Children's Choir.  I have nothing to complain about.  I have been through nothing.  Yet, just like them, I belong to God.  I am His.  And I am not alone.  I may have been hurt and I may carry the scars forever, but I am here.  And I am alive.  And I am His.
If those little kids can smile and dance and sing, unencumbered by the tethers of cynicism, unhindered by the chains of anger, then my own past must hold no more power over me.  I am free, because I belong to the One who freed those children from the grips of war, disease, and every possible hardship. I am free because, even in my darkest hour, even when I felt most alone, it was God Almighty that was sheltering me, it was under His wings that I took refuge.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with every-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.  (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)