Latest / UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth / Forgiveness After Trauma: Freedom Without Excusing It

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Forgiveness After Trauma: Freedom Without Excusing It · UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth

0:03
What do you do when the person who was supposed to protect you
0:06
becomes your source of deepest wound?
0:09
When trauma steals your sense of identity and safety and future?
0:15
Today's guest knows that journey first hand, and his story shows.
0:18
What story shows that forgiveness isn't weakness, it's
0:22
the key that unlocks the prison that you didn't realize you were
0:24
living in? Welcome to Unmasked, where we
0:31
take off the filters and get real about faith, failure, and
0:35
finding freedom. I'm your host, Wesley
0:37
Farnsworth, a dad, veteran, author, and a man who's learned
0:41
that God does his best work in the middle of our mess.
0:45
Each episode will have honest conversations with people who
0:47
walk through addiction, pain, or doubt, and with pastors,
0:51
leaders, and everyday believers who are learning to live and
0:54
lead authentically. So take a breath, pull up a
0:58
chair, and let's get real. This is unmasked.
1:09
Today on Unmasked, I'm honored to welcome Scott Stewart, a man
1:12
whose story carries the weight of unthinkable tragedy, but also
1:16
the beauty of what God can rebuild from ashes.
1:19
At just 22, Scott's world shattered when his father took
1:23
his mother's life, sending him spiraling in the years of
1:26
darkness, self medication and survival.
1:29
But their counseling, mentorship, and deep inner works
1:32
got began the slow, painful, courageous journey of healing.
1:37
Along the way, he's discovered a truth that transformed
1:40
everything. Forgiveness isn't about the
1:43
offender. It's about the freedom for the
1:46
one carrying the pain. And now, Scott uses his
1:49
experience to help others break toxic patterns, rebuild self
1:53
worth, and step into emotional and spiritual freedom.
1:57
Today, he's here to talk about healing, resilience, and why
2:01
forgiveness may just be the most powerful act of reclaiming your
2:04
life. Scott, thank you so much for
2:07
joining us today here on UNMASKED.
2:10
Wesley, it's always it's always a privilege and such a, an honor
2:15
when I get to meet with folks like you and and share some of
2:19
these, not only the story, right, but to share some things
2:21
that will help other people. It's an honor.
2:23
So thanks for having me. Absolutely, man, I was so happy
2:26
when you accepted the invite to be on the show today.
2:29
And so I'm excited to hear what you have to share with us.
2:31
So let's go ahead and just jump into it and let's hear.
2:34
Let's hear your your background and your journey of becoming
2:38
unmasked. Yeah, for sure.
2:40
Well, thanks. Yeah, I think we need to, you
2:43
know, we need to start obviously where it all started and, and
2:46
some key pieces to anybody's story.
2:48
And that is just to let everybody know that I was
2:50
adopted at birth. And so the the the folks that I
2:55
called mom and dad were not biologically my mom and dad.
3:00
Now, not that that makes a huge difference, but you know, for
3:03
someone who, who is, who has been adopted, you know, there's,
3:07
we all have questions. We all have things that that
3:12
questions we want answered. And, and why did that happen?
3:15
Yeah. But I, I, I grew up in a small
3:18
town in Oregon and lived in a, a rural small town about 5500.
3:27
And it, it didn't take me long as a, as a, as a young type to
3:32
figure out that my dad had significant anger issues and,
3:38
and that he could go from, you know, normal, if there, if there
3:42
is such a thing, he go from normal to extremely mad in
3:45
seconds. And I, I learned that very
3:47
early. And so because of that, I
3:51
learned to somewhat walk on egg shells.
3:54
You know, growing up, I never knew which dad, if you will, you
3:58
know, I was, I was going to be and the slightest things could
4:00
just set him off. And I through my years in
4:04
school, public school system, middle school, high school, back
4:07
then, you know, back in those days, Wesley, I'm dating myself
4:10
here. But back in those days, they
4:12
didn't know this thing called ADHD.
4:15
They didn't. Nobody knew what that was,
4:17
especially in the smaller towns. That wasn't like, what is that
4:21
acronym? What is that?
4:22
I mean, nobody knew. And I was clearly one of those
4:25
kids. I was a product of that.
4:27
And so that my learning style, it was very, very difficult for
4:32
me to retain information. I could read a book and my mind
4:35
would just drift off you somewhere else.
4:38
But I would keep reading and never.
4:39
Yeah, you. You relate.
4:41
Yeah. And the struggle's real, you
4:43
know, And then no matter how hard you focus your mind, just
4:47
eventually it, it drifts off to somewhere else.
4:50
And my dad's answer to that, because of his anger and because
4:54
of his upbringing was just to yell louder, hit me harder and
4:57
discipline me even more. That was his answer.
5:01
And, and we know as adult, as a grown adult man, that doesn't
5:04
work, that that does not fix the problem.
5:06
That only causes more problems. But my gosh, I couldn't, you
5:09
know, as a result of that was like every test.
5:13
And this is, this is no exaggeration, because I lifted
5:17
every test between about the 6th grade all the way up to my
5:20
senior year in high school. Every test, whether that was a
5:23
weekly test or a quarterly or or a semester, whatever it was, I
5:29
failed. I failed 9 1/2 out of 10 of all
5:32
of those tests. And as you could imagine, what
5:34
that would have done to myself esteem, it would have just
5:37
spiraled down because, you know, no matter how hard I tried, no
5:41
matter how much effort I put into it, I just couldn't retain
5:44
it. So for me to graduate just, and
5:47
barely to barely graduate high school was, it was such a relief
5:52
because school to me represented failure because I, I, I
5:57
couldn't, my friends around me, you know, that without even
6:03
doing any work, they were getting C's and B's and, and,
6:06
and I would spend hours at trying to, trying to study with
6:10
no, with no results. And so as a result of that, you
6:13
have the failure and then you have a father on top of that who
6:16
doesn't understand how to handle it and handle it in the worst
6:19
way possible. And so for me, when graduating
6:21
high school, it was more of I felt I was getting out of
6:24
prison, right? Or, or, or I was literally I was
6:26
getting out of I mean, because it was just, it was so hard.
6:31
It was so rough. And so I couldn't wait to get
6:34
out of that school. And then shortly after that I
6:36
moved out to get away from my father because of his anger
6:40
issues, constantly yelling, being mad at over the slightest
6:44
things. You know, it, it was literally I
6:47
mentioned a moment ago egg shells.
6:48
And that that was that was the life I grew up in.
6:52
My mom and I were were fairly close.
6:55
I was tight with my mom. The unfortunate part about this,
7:00
my mom was the the dictionary example of enabling she she
7:11
always had an excuse. She always had a reason why my
7:15
dad was mad. Always, 100% of the time.
7:19
Oh honey, he's just He had a bad day at work.
7:22
He didn't get much sleep. His neck is hurting, you know,
7:26
they made him work, you know, 4 hours overtime.
7:28
I mean, she always had a reason. So this was the environment that
7:33
I grew up in and not very healthy, you know, it did not,
7:37
it did not in any way prevent me or, excuse me, promote me to
7:45
step into the real world. I was ill equipped, hands down.
7:49
And combine that with my mom, she had every as an enabler at
7:53
every corner. She was, she taught me how to
7:56
avoid conflict. And that was her.
7:58
That was her thing. We just have to avoid.
8:00
We got to keep the peace. We we got to.
8:02
We can't. Yeah.
8:03
Just, you know, let it go, let it slide.
8:06
I mean, she was the peacekeeper. And as you and I know, Wesley
8:10
has grown men with families, this world is full of conflict,
8:15
you know, And when you as a kid, when you step into the real
8:21
world and you don't have these skills, you don't have these
8:25
things in place, oh, you're, you're you're doomed, man.
8:29
You just are. And so that, that kind of sets
8:32
the stage for me. So moving along as I moved out
8:36
of shortly after high school, I moved out and, and then the
8:39
beautiful thing was not the moving out.
8:41
It was getting away from my dad. I was getting away from him and
8:43
his wrath and him and his zero to pissed off to the extreme in
8:49
three seconds. That was a beautiful thing.
8:51
Because I, I felt between me not taking any more tests and not
8:56
being under my dad's thumb, I made, I felt freedom for the
8:59
first time at, at, at the age of 19, you know, And so moving
9:05
along a little bit to the story, my daddy's anger, if it's at all
9:09
possible, it continued to increase.
9:12
And when I would go see them and visit them at their house or my
9:16
mom would say, you know, he's he's cleaning the gutters today.
9:20
Can you, can you come over and help him or whatever?
9:22
And, and I'd come over and it was within 5 minutes, within 10
9:26
minutes, he is just twisted sideways about something and
9:29
raging pissed off, you know, And so I would just go be like,
9:33
yeah, I'm out of here, I'm done. I'm not putting up with you.
9:36
And I just leave. I was still to some degree as
9:40
well as I could. I was still somewhat close to my
9:42
mom, you know, but but my dad, I just tried to keep some space
9:47
between he and I because I just couldn't.
9:50
I just couldn't deal with it, you know?
9:53
So let's let's move to, you know what, to what you said in the
9:57
introduction when I was 22. What happened?
9:59
So it was a August 5th teen, 91. Yeah.
10:03
Little. Oh, my gosh.
10:04
Boy, does that ever date me? Holy cow.
10:07
That doesn't feel like that long ago, Wesley.
10:08
But it was a summer night in, you know, small town America in
10:12
the Pacific Northwest. I was it was a Monday night.
10:16
I was scheduled to have dinner with my mom and dad, mom and dad
10:22
that night after dinner. And I went there and my mom made
10:26
homemade spaghetti. And gosh, she could just that
10:30
her homemade spaghetti was incredible.
10:32
Wesley. I mean, you could just you could
10:33
smell that thing two blocks away and it was it tasted so good.
10:37
So she made spaghetti that night.
10:39
Sat we had a fantastic meal and and surprisingly enough, my
10:43
dad's anger was in check. It was actually if there is such
10:47
thing as a normal night, it was a normal evening and I spent a
10:50
couple hours with him and I got ready to leave and I, I walked
10:57
to the front door and opened up the door and my mom kind of
11:02
followed me to that to the front door.
11:04
She said, they said, I'll never forget it.
11:06
She said, come here, you turn, give me a hug.
11:08
And you know, like any good son, I turned around and gave my mom
11:11
a hug and kissed her on the cheek.
11:12
And I said, I love you. And I walked out the door.
11:16
And what I didn't know was that was going to be the last time
11:20
that that would be the last time I ever saw her.
11:27
Later that night, I was asleep in my bed in my house about call
11:32
it 10 miles away, 12 miles away, whatever that is.
11:37
And I got a phone call and it was about 11:30 at night.
11:41
I got a phone call, woke me up and I answered it and it was my
11:44
cousin. And, and you could tell that
11:46
his, his voice was elevated and he said, Scott, you have to get
11:51
over here to your mom and dad's house like right now, like right
11:54
now. And, and I was like, you know,
11:57
half, still half asleep. And I'm like, what?
12:00
Get over here. I don't care what you're doing.
12:03
If you're asleep. Get over here to your mom and
12:04
dad's house like right now. So I, I hung up the phone, I got
12:13
dressed, put a hat on and jetted out the door.
12:16
And when I got to where my mom and dad's street was, it was a
12:20
very, very straight lane that they lived on.
12:23
A very straight. And when I turned the corner,
12:25
Wesley and I, and I started heading down that lane.
12:28
I could see down about 3/4 of a mile, half mile.
12:32
And Oh my gosh, it looked like a small city.
12:34
I mean, there was lights just flashing, you know, way down the
12:38
way down the lane and I was like in my heart, my stomach are both
12:43
just kind of just fell into my gut.
12:47
I mean, it just fell into and I started getting this very, very
12:51
uneasy feeling. And when I pulled up in front of
12:55
their house, holy smoked. It looked like, you know,
12:59
something out of a crime scene because it was state police,
13:02
county police. There was actually a couple city
13:05
police there, even though they were they were a few miles out
13:07
of the city limits, ambulance, paramedics.
13:09
There was this yellow tape, you know, crime scene do not cross.
13:13
You know, we've seen those all the way around the house.
13:16
And again, this is a summer night.
13:18
This is a Monday night and in August and summer.
13:21
And so it's still somewhat warm out.
13:23
All the windows open, doors open, lights on, you know, and
13:26
this is midnight. This is midnight to, to, to
13:29
12:30, you know, now AM. And without, without going into
13:33
every single detail and to kind of speed the story along,
13:36
basically an officer, law enforcement agent, police
13:40
officer cornered me, pulled me over to his squad car, sat me in
13:45
the front seat. And we started talking.
13:47
And he said, he said, son, I'm sorry, but your, your mom is
13:51
deceased. And I already been in such a
13:57
call it adrenaline, call it in, in in just disbelief of what I
14:02
was seeing. It, it, it kind of, it was like
14:07
an arrow that pierced my heart, but it bounced off because I was
14:10
like, what? He said, I'm sorry, he said.
14:13
We have your dad in custody and in any kind of a crime scene
14:21
like that family, unfortunately, but it's the reality.
14:25
Family is always the first a suspect.
14:27
They, they are the ones that are first looked at and interviewed,
14:33
questioned, observed, you know, and, and for a valid reason
14:37
because that unfortunately that family has a lot to do with
14:41
homicides and things, things like that.
14:43
Anyway, So they were questioning me and, and, and I just remember
14:47
just feeling like this is a, this is a bad dream, man.
14:50
This this is a this is and to wrap up this night, I will just
14:56
tell you that in my father somewhere around 30 Monday
15:02
night, August 1st. Well, my mom lay sleeping in her
15:05
bed, or at least I want to believe Wesley that she was
15:07
asleep in her bed. He went into the garage in a fit
15:10
of rage. He went into the garage and he
15:16
got a, a stainless steel bar that was about 2630 inches long.
15:22
And while she lay in her bed asleep, he, he went to work on
15:26
her. I, I and my family's life will
15:33
be forever changed from that. You know that that was never, it
15:38
was never something you see coming.
15:41
And it's even thinking about back about it, you know, it
15:44
forever changed our lives. And so that is that's where
15:47
everything for everything changed for for me, my, my
15:51
grandmother, my cousin, my family, it just everything
15:54
changed that way. They took my dad into custody
16:10
and I kind of went numb. I just kind of, you know,
16:16
looking back on it, I was such a young lost soul, you know, with,
16:20
with, with no roots in faith. I didn't even know who God was.
16:25
You know, I, I heard my God, my dad talk about God all the time,
16:28
but it was not in in the realm of how we, you and I would talk
16:32
about God, right? I mean, he would use his name,
16:34
cuss words constantly and I just kind of went off the deep end.
16:39
I started self medicating with alcohol.
16:43
Not, not, not, not to get obliterated drunk, but just so I
16:47
could function so, so, so I could numb, I could numb the
16:54
reality and just function because I still had to go to
16:58
work. And now I did have a few days
17:00
off and whatnot, but but it was very, very difficult to function
17:04
because every time I'd start to think about this, I just turned
17:06
into a babbling mess. You know, as you might, as you
17:09
might imagine, right. So my dad's in, in the county
17:12
jail. Mom is gone.
17:13
My, my grandmother, who was, I was also close to, you know, her
17:18
daughter is now dead and her son in law's in jail.
17:21
And you know, she's an older woman at this time, of course.
17:23
And it was, it was very difficult to cope.
17:29
And so as as moving along my sister now this is my, this
17:33
would be my half sister. My father was previously
17:38
married. And so this is a, this is a
17:41
woman from his previous marriage.
17:43
So she's nine years, I think 11 years older than me.
17:48
She her and I were, were in a little bit of communication
17:51
during all of this. And she calls me and she says
17:55
this is about two weeks, about two weeks ish after after this
17:58
event, she calls me and she says something she goes, I need to
18:04
look in my dad's eyes and I need him.
18:07
I need to know if he did this. I need to look in his eyes.
18:10
She said I'm going to go see him in jail.
18:12
Do you want to go? And at this point, I'm, I'm just
18:16
not Wesley. There's no other I, I don't know
18:19
how else to describe it. I'm just, I'm just numb.
18:21
And it's not just from the alcohol.
18:23
It's, it's from this is so traumatic.
18:26
And I, I believe this and I believed it's then.
18:30
So I'm going to say it regardless of whether or not you
18:32
believe in God, sometimes he picks us up and carries us when
18:37
we're not even able to crawl. He just does.
18:40
And that was me because of this traumatic event.
18:44
And so I said, OK, I'll, I'll go.
18:46
So we, we rode down to the county jail together and I was
18:51
the first one that went in to see him.
18:52
And it's, it was exactly like you see on TV, you know, you see
18:57
the people behind the glass. You know, they got the phone,
18:59
they got the jumpsuit. I mean, it was exactly like
19:02
that. You know, I can still remember
19:03
him sitting there with that smug look on his face.
19:08
But we're, we're talking on the phone and we small talked about
19:12
a couple things and he looked right, Wesley, he looked right
19:16
at me with, with those manipulative, very cold black
19:23
eyes. He looked right at me and he
19:25
said, do you think I killed your mom?
19:28
And I remember saying, I don't know what to believe.
19:34
I'm I'm, I'm still trying to even process this.
19:39
And I hope this is just a really bad dream.
19:41
That's what I kind of remember saying.
19:44
And as he's just, he's just glaring at me.
19:46
He says he goes, he goes. Well, I didn't.
19:48
Now, something I skipped over that I should have said is that
19:53
there's that with a few days or about a week after all of this
19:58
happened, my dad confessed to it.
19:59
My dad confessed to the murder. He confessed to the police that
20:03
he did it. They got it on tape.
20:04
So I don't know what it is in other states, but in the state
20:06
of Oregon, when you confess to murder, there's no need for a
20:10
trial. You go straight to sentencing
20:13
that that's just, you know, it's just how it works.
20:16
And so I'm sitting there across from him and I'm, I'm looking,
20:20
looking at him and he he says, well, I, he goes, I didn't, he
20:24
goes, and I'm not making this up.
20:27
He said I didn't kill your mom, but I told them I did to cover
20:34
up for you because I thought you did it.
20:43
You know, if you ever had, you know, 100 arrows blasted at you
20:47
all at once, You you just, you know, it's as if I wasn't numb
20:52
enough and now I'm even number. Is that even a word?
20:56
I, you know, I just was so I just couldn't believe and he
21:01
just stared there and looked at me.
21:03
Now you heard me were to use the word manipulation.
21:05
My father was a master manipulator all my life.
21:09
He had a military grade experience at manipulation.
21:14
He was a master at it. Probably the best I've ever
21:17
seen. And I just, I just sat there in
21:23
disbelief of what I just heard. And he said, he talked, he said
21:27
a few other things. And I just, I don't even
21:29
remember what was said. I just was, so I just was so in
21:33
disbelief. And I got off the phone and my
21:35
sister came in and talked to him and I just went in the other
21:38
room and I just was, you know, again, God carries us sometimes
21:43
when we just can't even crawl or can't even stand.
21:46
And that was me, you know, that that was me to be hit with that.
21:50
And so we left. A short while later we left and
21:53
on the way home, I told my sister what what he said.
21:55
And she just, she just shook her head.
21:58
She really didn't have anything to say.
22:00
But what do you say after that? You know, so that's where the
22:05
whole bomb, everything unfolds and unravels.
22:08
And I'm, I'm just left in a puddle of of mess.
22:13
You know, I've been rambling on. I'm sorry, Wesley, did you have,
22:16
did you have a question or did you want to make or did you want
22:18
to make note of something? I'm I'm happy to fill in any
22:21
blanks if you have a if you. No, man, this story is, I wish I
22:25
could say it was a story, but it's, it's, it's a lived
22:29
experience and it's just one of those things that, you know,
22:32
it's, it sounds like something you would just see on TV and,
22:35
and does a made-up story on a crime documentary, a crime show.
22:39
And I'm, I'm sorry that you've had to go through this.
22:42
But now I'm just, I'm anxious to hear how how this transformation
22:46
has gone through, has taken place because you've lived
22:49
through something that most people would let just make them
22:54
crawl into a corner and never come out.
22:56
So I'm anxious to hear the rest of it.
22:59
Yeah, yeah. Well, let's get to that.
23:01
You know, as I had mentioned, I was just self medicating and it
23:05
wasn't it per SE to just to just stay drunk all the time.
23:10
It was just so I could operate. That's really the most accurate
23:14
way I can say that if if you take some of the pain and the
23:18
reality and go when it's all the way up here, Wesley, and you
23:21
drop it down to here, you can function.
23:24
And, and, and that was me not saying I'm proud of that, but
23:27
I'm saying that's what it took for me to function.
23:28
And I could still go to work. I could still, at least I
23:31
thought I could still function, you know, normally.
23:34
So a couple years went by and now there were some other things
23:38
that happened in there, but for the sake of time, I, I'm just,
23:41
I'm going to, I'm just going to let that go.
23:43
And we're, because I want to talk about the beautiful thing
23:46
that came from this and not just the consistent negative piece
23:50
about it. But I had been, it'd been a
23:54
couple years, maybe 2 1/2 years that I was at work.
23:59
And we had a cafeteria at the place that I worked at at the
24:02
time. And I was having a really rough
24:04
day. I mean, I was just barely
24:07
holding it together. And I was sitting at a lunch
24:10
table by myself eating my lunch. And this gentleman came up and
24:15
sat beside me. Now he worked, he worked in a,
24:19
in a department that was next to mine.
24:21
And so he and I had had brief conversations, but I knew him.
24:24
He was a Christian man. Now, at that time, I didn't know
24:26
what that was or really what that meant.
24:29
What does it, what does that entail?
24:30
But I knew he was a Christian man.
24:32
He sat down next to me and we started small talking or
24:34
whatever. And he, there was this big long
24:37
pause. And I'll never forget this
24:39
because here's the turning point.
24:41
Here's where, here's where everything started to change for
24:43
me for the better. Long pause.
24:48
And he stopped eating and he just turned and he just looked
24:51
at me and he said, so how's it going?
24:55
And I said, yeah, yeah, that's fine.
24:57
I mean, I'm getting by. And he just stared at me and he
25:04
said, no, really, Scott, honestly, how's it going?
25:08
I talk to me. How are you?
25:11
And brother, I lost it. I lost it right there.
25:16
Gosh, I get emotional just thinking about this because I
25:18
remember it so clearly. I just, I just lost my crap.
25:24
I'm in the middle of the lunchroom and at my employer and
25:27
I just started sobbing and I couldn't stop.
25:30
And, you know, he put his arm around me and he, and he, he
25:33
didn't say anything. He just put his arm around me
25:35
and and, you know, showed me some compassion, you know, and
25:40
he said, he said, you know, you can't keep living like this,
25:45
right? And and somewhere in the depths
25:48
of my heart, Wesley, I knew he was right.
25:50
I couldn't, I was headed down a pretty dark road.
25:53
And he he said, I'm here for you and I'll help you.
25:56
And he was sometimes in life, you know, the right people show
26:01
up at just the right time and with the exact right message.
26:05
And that was him. That that's that hinge pin
26:09
moment where life started to take a different course, if you
26:13
will. And to speed the story along, I
26:17
started going to counseling. Now in, in today's world, here
26:22
we are in 2025 at the end of the year, counseling psychologist,
26:28
they get a bad rap and I understand why I, I'm not going
26:31
to defend them, but, but there's a lot of people with, with a lot
26:35
of really strong hard feelings against them.
26:38
Now you got to remember, folks, this, this, this counseling
26:42
wasn't, didn't happen yesterday. We're, we're, we're now, right.
26:45
We're now talking about the year 2000.
26:47
Excuse me, 1995. So this was quite a while ago.
26:52
And, and was it, was it God's divine direction?
26:56
Was it his grace? Was it by luck?
26:58
Maybe a little bit of all of it, but I found the right counselor
27:02
for me. For me, and I believe the right
27:07
person is the key to healing. If you're going to have some
27:13
kind of therapy, some a psychologist, a counselor,
27:16
whatever that is, I believe the right person is is is critical.
27:23
And for me, I had the right person and she started working
27:26
with me and and she started helping me.
27:29
Now at about the same time or shortly after, I stove into
27:33
personal development, personal growth and I started healing.
27:38
And before you can heal, I believe you have to feel and now
27:41
that, and that's kind of a cheesy way to say that, but that
27:45
truly is what I experienced. You have to feel all of those
27:48
things. You have to feel all of the
27:50
hurt. You have to feel the times that
27:53
you were abused, the times that you were emotionally, mentally
27:56
abused, the times that the people who loved you and should
28:00
have been protecting you, abandoning you.
28:03
You have to feel those things before you can heal from them.
28:07
Now I'm, I'm not a clinical psychologist by any point, but
28:11
but I believe that that is a key pivotable piece to be able to
28:16
heal from those things and to have the right person in your
28:20
life. Hallelujah, man, it makes such a
28:22
difference. So excuse me, so forward closer
28:28
to that 2 1/2 years in from the personal growth and from the,
28:33
the counselor, the right people showed up and it was a divine
28:37
appointment and I found God in all of that.
28:39
And now prior to this, I, again, I, I mentioned, I really, I had
28:44
no idea of what that meant, what that looked like.
28:46
It's not a church, it's not a church building.
28:50
It wasn't a pastor per SE, but I, I found something that was,
28:55
that was, I couldn't describe, that was a connection inside my
28:59
soul that it changed my life. You know, in today's world,
29:03
sometimes the word religious gets abused, you know, quite a
29:07
bit. It wasn't a religious thing.
29:09
It was a spiritual thing. It was a deep connection.
29:12
And, and I do believe that God came into my life and I, I
29:16
surrendered my soul and asked, you know, ask Jesus into my
29:20
life. And, and things started to
29:23
change. I did again, I didn't join a
29:25
church. It, it, it wasn't a pastor, but
29:28
something inside me had changed. Something came from out there
29:32
and came into, into me and started changing me, started
29:36
working on me. And closer to the 2 1/2 years
29:39
into the therapy, the the counselor, she says she goes,
29:45
she goes, let's talk about forgiveness.
29:48
And I went, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know all about that.
29:52
We're not going to talk about that.
29:53
Like, you know, like somehow I, I knew exactly what needed to
29:58
happen here. And again, I had the right
30:00
Wesley. I had the right person because
30:02
she, she was smart enough to know that to talk to me about
30:08
forgiveness. We couldn't come in through the
30:10
front door, We had to come in the side door and talk about
30:13
this thing, forgiveness. And, and she started talking to
30:16
me about that and just planting seeds in my life.
30:19
And here's what I found out. I didn't, I, I thought I knew
30:25
what forgiveness was. I did not.
30:28
I had an inaccurate belief about what forgiveness is and who it's
30:32
for. And when I was done with my
30:34
counseling, she had planted enough seeds in my life and, and
30:38
I think God was working on me too as well.
30:41
But I had started the forgiveness process.
30:43
And I will, I'll share something here that that might be
30:46
surprising to a lot of people. It took me 12 years to forgive
30:56
that man, my father 12 years. Let that sink in for a second.
31:09
That whole time I'm I'm working on I'm, I'm trying to let go of
31:18
this. I'm, I'm trying to not carry it
31:21
around with me every minute of the day and trying not to be
31:25
angry at him and pissed at him for taking my mom's life and,
31:29
and for, for, for treating me like dog crap.
31:33
It, it was a process. 12 years. So the question I'm often asked
31:43
is, OK, hold on, wait a minute. 12 years.
31:46
What, what do you do? What do you do in 12 years to
31:51
forgive somebody? And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to
31:54
lead off because I, I found six things.
31:57
I found six areas where I believe people get wrapped up a
32:02
tied up stuck if you will, around on the area of
32:05
forgiveness. I found six areas and then the
32:07
one area for me, I'm not saying this is for everybody with the
32:11
one area for me that was very difficult was I say I forgive
32:17
him, but yet 3 hours later I start having these negative
32:23
thoughts and now I'm pissed again at him and I and I just,
32:27
you know, I wish I could give to him what he gave to my mom.
32:34
I'd forgive him the next day out loud and I'd say I don't want to
32:39
carry this with me the rest of my life.
32:42
I forgive you. I forgive you.
32:43
And then the next day I find myself pissed off again.
32:49
What does that what does that mean?
32:52
And in let me look at my notes here just real quick in this is
32:59
not Wesley, this is not a sermon, but but this is the most
33:02
accurate way that I have found for me that that I was able to
33:07
forgive somebody in in the book of Matthew, Peter goes to Jesus.
33:12
And we've all heard this sermon, even for folks that, that, that
33:16
don't go to church or whatever. You may have heard this, this
33:18
passage, but in the book of Matthew, Peter goes to Jesus
33:22
and, and at the moment Jesus is teaching.
33:24
He's teaching to a crowd. We don't know how big the crowd
33:27
is. It could have been 10 people.
33:28
It could have been 1000 people. We don't know.
33:32
But in between teaching, Peter comes to Jesus and says, how
33:37
many, how many times should I forgive them?
33:40
Do you think I you shouldn't forgive them seven times?
33:43
Now I think Peter probably thought that's pretty noble. 7
33:46
times I'm, I'm going to forgive 7 times.
33:49
I mean, that's a lot, right? And, and what does Jesus say?
33:54
He says he goes, no, what about 7 * 70 or what about 7 * 77?
34:05
Now, depending upon which translation you read in
34:08
Scripture, by the way, I think that's, I think it's Matthew
34:11
1821 through 22, depending upon which translation you read,
34:16
you're going to get some different numbers.
34:18
Can we all agree that what Jesus was saying was you need to
34:21
forgive them a lot? That that's, that's the message
34:25
here. Don't get hung up on whether
34:27
it's 7 * 77 or 77. I mean, don't get hung up on
34:31
that. Here's my conviction.
34:35
I'm not saying it should be your conviction.
34:38
I'm saying it's my conviction. Every time that anger boils up
34:49
inside of you, every time that memory comes into your head and
34:53
starts to produce bitterness. Every time you start to think of
34:59
all the reasons why you should be mad at somebody, that's when
35:04
you forgive them. And how do you do that?
35:07
You out loud say you, you take that thought and you go, Nope,
35:12
Nope, no, I am not. I am not going to, I am not
35:18
going to accept that I forgive them.
35:20
And you say it out loud. And, and Wesley, that's exactly
35:22
what I did. 12 years. That's so powerful.
35:28
It's something that I think most people struggle with is as
35:32
forgiving other people, but also themselves.
35:35
And so that that's a that's just such a good step to to think
35:39
about. And just, hey, quick pause here.
35:43
If if something in this first part of this episode is speaking
35:45
to you, there's been some deep stuff shared.
35:48
If something's speaking to you and somebody came to mind that
35:53
you thought they need to hear this, would you just take quick
35:57
pause here just and share it with somebody else?
36:00
Seriously, That's how conversations like these get
36:02
started and get in front of people who need to hear it
36:05
because maybe they will never friend this episode if you don't
36:08
share it. And you never know what sharing
36:11
one thing can help somebody else overcome what they may be
36:15
dealing with. So would you share it?
36:18
All right, let's go ahead and jump back in.
36:20
Scott didn't want to interrupt you there, but I just I feel
36:22
like there's somebody out there that's probably like, man, this,
36:25
this person needs to hear this. And so I want to encourage them
36:28
to share with them. So talk to us.
36:31
I mean, just forgive me that many times is is not an easy
36:36
thing to do. And it can be very easy to to
36:41
feel repetitive, you know it and and be like, well, what's one
36:44
more time going to do? What helped you reframe
36:48
forgiveness from something that seemed impossible to something
36:53
that seemed transformational? Yeah, I think that the the
36:59
Wesley the direct answer to that was which is one of the six that
37:04
I mentioned a few moments ago. You have to want to you have to
37:08
want to do this now. Now that that sounds that sounds
37:14
a little bit shallow and a little bit easy, but here's what
37:16
I mean by that. Look, if, if you, if you are
37:21
plotting revenge, if you are, if you are intent on settling the
37:27
score, if you're intent on getting revenge and and you're,
37:30
you're plotting their demise, you're, you're, I'm, I'm going
37:33
to show them, I'm, I'm going to even the score you that's not
37:40
wanting to forgive, that's revenge.
37:43
And those two can't those two things cannot live in the same
37:45
camp. I I was a young man, I wasn't
37:50
married, I didn't have any kids. That I, the piece that that I
37:55
wanted to be free from was not carrying this with me the rest
38:00
of my life. Now, when I say carry that, what
38:04
I really mean is to be unhealed. And it's like an open sore and
38:11
open wound. And I just carry it with me
38:13
every day and it festers and it hurts and there's pain and I see
38:17
it every day. I didn't want that.
38:19
I wanted to be free from this. I will take a second and share
38:23
with you that when I was 14 years old, we were on a a family
38:30
hunting trip in Eastern Oregon. And one of my jobs to get ready
38:35
for that elk hunting trip was to put certain things, load up the
38:38
Jeep, load up the trailer, you know, so we could go hunting.
38:41
We could have all the supplies that we needed.
38:43
And what I had forgotten one of the things.
38:45
And when we had gotten to elk camp and my dad found out that I
38:49
had forgotten to put one of those things in the trailer, he
38:53
went off on me. And here we are in the middle of
38:57
the woods and he is screaming at the top of his lungs at me for
39:02
what felt like 5 minutes because I forgot something.
39:08
And at a time where that was supposed to be the most
39:11
enjoyable time to be a, you know, a family vacation, a
39:14
family getaway, a hunting trip, here he is degrading me and
39:19
belittling me and screaming at me in front of all of my all of
39:23
the family. There was probably eight of us
39:25
around the campfire, maybe 9. And he was humiliating me.
39:30
And I, I remember walking away from that and I went probably 75
39:36
yards away and I was by a tree. And for the first time in my
39:40
life, I said, God, I don't know who you are, but if you will get
39:43
me through this, I promise I will never raise my kids like
39:46
this. That was again, a pivotal
39:48
moment. And so coming back to the time
39:53
of healing, I didn't want to carry this with me.
39:56
I wanted to heal from this. I didn't want to pass this
40:01
garbage that had this program right, like a computer.
40:05
I was programmed by this man. I didn't want to pass that on to
40:10
my kids. I wanted them to have a better
40:13
father experience than I had. And so the second piece of this
40:20
is you have to want to forgive, not, you know, the the second
40:24
piece of this is forgiveness isn't always a one time thing.
40:27
Sometimes it's an ongoing thing. And for me, that was 12 years
40:31
before I finally felt like when I say, Nope, I forgive you,
40:37
those thoughts never came back into my head again. 12 years
40:43
true story. You know, many listeners, excuse
40:46
me, many listeners feel stuck. You know, it's a recurring
40:49
theme. You know, they, they feel stuck
40:51
because the pain that they're experiencing is so real, much
40:56
like you, you were experiencing during those 12 years trying to
40:58
forgive. And to them, forgiveness feels
41:01
like portraying themselves, you know, or minimizing what
41:04
happened. They feel like if they forgive
41:06
then then whatever happened didn't happen right there
41:09
minimizing it. So what lies or
41:11
misunderstandings about forgiveness do you see people
41:14
most struggle with right now? And what do you tell them?
41:19
Yeah, perfect question, brother. You couldn't have asked the more
41:22
perfect question. The one answer to that is, is
41:25
forgiveness is never for the other person.
41:27
Forgiveness is for you. And you have to, you have to.
41:32
That has to come become your belief.
41:36
Because if your belief is if you think, well, I'm going to
41:38
forgive somebody, that means I'm going to excuse their behavior.
41:43
No, it is not. No, it's not.
41:47
Forgiveness is not excusing someone else's behavior.
41:51
Forgiveness. Please hear me, excuse me, hear
41:55
me clearly. What forgiveness does is it
41:59
allows you to continue to go through life so that when you
42:05
think of that event, it doesn't wreck you, it doesn't destroy
42:12
you, it doesn't fill your head full of anger and, and, and
42:17
bitterness and resentment and think of retaliation.
42:21
That's what forgiveness does. So that means forgiveness is for
42:24
you. Forgiveness is for you.
42:27
It it's, it's letting go. It has nothing to do really.
42:32
It has nothing to do with the other person.
42:34
Forgiveness is for you, so it's the best gift you can give
42:37
yourself is to let that go and give yourself the peace.
42:42
That's good. So good.
42:44
You know, yeah, forgiveness and healing is a slow process, that
42:50
it's messy. It can be really messy as you're
42:52
working through all of the emotions and everything that
42:55
goes with it. So you've mentioned the
42:57
practices of of forgiving every single time it cross and crawls
43:01
into your mind or passes you through your mind.
43:03
But what other practices or rhythms or support systems did
43:07
you put in place that actually helped you rebuild your mind,
43:11
body and soul during those early years?
43:14
And even today that still helps you as when those things cross
43:18
your mind. Yeah, yeah, there's a few
43:22
things, Wesley. A few other things here.
43:24
Real quick is, is that sometimes people think that forgiveness,
43:29
it requires forgetting. We have to forget the event in
43:33
order to forgive it. I don't even know where that
43:36
came from, but that is such a lie.
43:39
It is such a lie. You are not required to forget.
43:43
Just understand you're not. You're not required to forget.
43:45
The idea is, is that you forgive so that when you remember, it
43:51
doesn't again, it doesn't wreck you, right?
43:52
It doesn't leave you bitter, doesn't leave.
43:54
It doesn't leave you angry. Another one is, you know,
43:58
forgiveness doesn't equal trust. I can forgive somebody and heck
44:02
no. Will I trust them again?
44:05
Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
44:09
Why? Because I can choose.
44:11
And it is a choice. I choose to forgive somebody.
44:14
But trust is earned. Trust is earned.
44:18
Forgiveness is given by my choice.
44:21
Don't have to trust somebody. My father, Pretty bad guy.
44:26
Pretty bad dude. Do you think, based on what I've
44:28
shared in this story, do you ever think that I wanted him
44:30
around my daughters because of his manipulation and just
44:36
abusiveness? No, no, you, you, you, I'll
44:41
forgive you, but I'm not going to trust you.
44:43
And because I'm not going to trust you, I'm going to set a
44:45
boundary. That's a whole nother episode.
44:48
It is boundaries, but I'm going to, I'm holding you off to the
44:52
side. You're in a boundary because I
44:54
don't trust you and and I'll forgive you and I'll let go of
44:58
that pain and bitterness. But no, I'm I'm not going, I'm
45:02
not going to trust you again. The other piece is, you know,
45:05
forgiveness does not change the past at all.
45:09
Can't change one thing about the past.
45:12
None of this is what I've shared this last 5050 minutes.
45:15
None of that's going to change based on my willingness or
45:18
wanting to forgive. Here's what it does do.
45:21
And this means everything. Forgiving that man changed my
45:27
future, change my future. All the years I had left, the
45:32
time that I was raising my daughter, the times for me to be
45:37
a healthy, supporting, providing, nurturing husband to
45:41
my wife change that. Forgiveness changed my future
45:48
and and the future is all we got with the current moment and the
45:52
current moment. But moving into the future.
45:55
You, you can't drag that crap with you or you can, but it'll
45:59
ruin it. It'll screw it up, it'll mess it
46:01
up. So forgiveness doesn't change
46:03
the past, but it does change your future.
46:05
You have to remember that. And your future is, is more
46:08
important than what's happened in the past because we have the
46:11
choice today to change how we how we raise our kids, right,
46:18
how we treat our spouse. So there's some pieces there
46:23
that you need to understand about forgiveness to help you to
46:27
move forward. The, the other piece, I think to
46:33
answer your question directly, and then I'm then I'll, I'll, I
46:36
want to hear what you have to say, Wesley.
46:38
The the other piece for me was again, as I had mentioned, you
46:42
know, at, at at the age of 14, I went at that L camp and I, I
46:47
told God, I said, I never want to be the kind of parent to my
46:49
kids that my dad is to me. That was that I meant that that
46:54
was not out of an emotional moment that that was a sincere
46:59
from glimpse of my heart. And the cool thing about this is
47:04
that I broke the cycle because my dad was abusive emotionally,
47:11
mentally, physically, his dad abusive emotionally, mentally,
47:18
physically, his dad again abusive mentally, emotionally
47:24
and physically. I broke that cycle and I I don't
47:30
say that with pride. I don't say that with arrogance.
47:33
I say that because Hallelujah, my kids will never know what
47:38
it's like to have an abusive father who did those things to
47:42
me. They'll never know what that's
47:44
like because I was never that guy.
47:46
I was never that man. You think about the legacy that
47:50
we leave with our kids, our grandkids and their kids, right?
47:56
Is that as a man, I just want to ask some of the people
47:59
listening, is that not enough for you to say I don't want to
48:07
be known. I don't want to be known as an A
48:11
hole. I don't want to be known as as
48:13
that mean guy who who yelled and screamed at my kids and
48:17
belittled them and embarrassed them.
48:19
To me. That been a lot.
48:20
I, I wanted my kids to be close to me.
48:23
I wanted my kids to look up and go, this is, this is the way the
48:27
way a man should be. I wanted to set that example for
48:30
them. I wanted to be, I wanted again,
48:34
not pridefully, but I wanted to be their hero.
48:36
I wanted to be their teacher, but I also I wanted to be stern
48:39
and understand that, you know, dad is, is full of love and he's
48:44
full of grace. But here I am and this is the
48:46
way a man should be. And as a beautiful thing as a
48:49
result, my daughter this last year married and I could not
48:53
have asked for a better man that she married.
48:55
My heart is full. My heart is full.
48:57
You know, Wesley out of five boxes, brother, he checks 4 1/2
49:01
of the five boxes. How could I ask for anything
49:04
better to take care, to take care of my first born daughter.
49:07
You know, my mini me, my, my, my girl who we were just like this
49:12
growing up. So I think that I hope that
49:15
answers some of your some of your questions about, you know,
49:18
what it what does it take to forgive and what are some of the
49:20
pieces that you need to put in place to make that happen?
49:23
Yeah, it absolutely does. And I love how how faith has
49:28
played a role. I mean, it's clear, just evident
49:30
hearing you share how faith has played a role in all of this.
49:33
And I think that's an important part.
49:35
So every episode, I love to leave my guests with an action
49:39
step, something that they can meditate on, that they can
49:42
implement in their lives to move forward as they as they work on
49:46
becoming unmasked. And so for the person listening
49:49
today who carries deep resentment, they carry family
49:53
wounds, they carry feelings of betrayal and it feels like
49:59
forgiveness to them is just impossible.
50:02
What is the very first step that they can take towards freedom
50:07
without feeling overwhelmed by the whole journey?
50:12
Yeah, I think the very first step as I had mentioned is do
50:15
you, do you want to forgive them?
50:19
And that's not a question you have to answer to me, but it,
50:22
but it is a question you have to answer to yourself.
50:25
Do you, do you want to do this? Do you want to let go of this?
50:30
Because if you are wrapped around the axle and, and and I'm
50:37
I'm saying this with love, please don't misread my message.
50:40
Please, please don't misread my message if you're going to hide
50:47
behind being a victim. Again, I'm saying this with
50:53
love. I'm not, I'm not trying to cast
50:54
judgment. If you're going to hide behind
50:58
being a victim of an event and, and that you've grasped to that
51:04
identity, you need to look really, really close inward and
51:08
go, do I want to forgive this or do I want to hang on to this
51:11
piece of identity? You really do.
51:14
So that's the first step. Do you want to forgive them?
51:18
If there's even this much in your, in your, in your heart
51:22
that says no, I do, I think I do, I do.
51:24
Then here's what you need to start doing.
51:26
Here's here's action step number #1 start saying out loud even
51:31
when it doesn't feel normal. Here's what you say.
51:37
Hear me clearly, folks. Hear me clearly.
51:39
Please. No, I choose to forgive them.
51:43
Just start with that. When that anger and that
51:47
bitterness and those sorrowful memories come in and just sweep
51:50
over you like a wave, a tsunami wave, and I do understand what
51:54
that is. You have to stop and say no
51:57
stop. I choose to forgive.
52:00
Just start with that. Start with that.
52:04
I choose to forget. Say it out loud.
52:07
If you're in a public place, say it real quiet.
52:09
You don't have to yell it. Say it quiet to yourself.
52:13
No, I choose to forgive. That's how you start.
52:17
That's how you start. Just take the first step.
52:21
You may have to say that 1000 times.
52:24
You may only have to say that 50 times, but that's how you start.
52:28
I choose to forgive you. Say it out loud.
52:32
Don't say it in your mind. I probably did that, Wesley,
52:37
brother. I probably did that a couple 100
52:39
times. No joke, No exaggeration.
52:42
No, I'm not going to be angry. I choose to forgive.
52:47
That's your action step right there.
52:49
There you go, folks. You heard it straight from if
52:51
he's not an expert on forgiveness, I don't know what
52:54
makes him. I mean that just the things he's
52:55
been through. And Scott is a living proof of
52:58
the thing that I say time and time again on the show, and I'm
53:01
going to repeat it one more time, you're not defined by how
53:05
you were brought up. You're not defined by the things
53:07
that you've done, and you're not defined by the things that have
53:10
happened to you. You're defined only by who you
53:12
say you are and more importantly, who God says that
53:15
you are. So Scott, thank you so much for
53:17
sharing your story. For the listeners that want to
53:20
hear more about you or find you, is there some place online that
53:23
they can find out find you? Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm not on
53:28
social media as much as I used to be simply because it, it can
53:31
get too consuming. But here's what I would thought
53:34
I would say if you'd, if you'd like to shoot me an e-mail and
53:37
just whether it's vent or whether it's share what you,
53:41
what you've learned or even a little bit.
53:43
If you're looking for feedback, if you're looking for some help
53:46
or support, shoot me an e-mail. Scott Stewart speaking at Gmail.
53:52
I'd love to hear from you. No strings attached.
53:55
I'm not going to try and sell you something, but
53:56
scott.stewartspeaking@gmail.com, I'd love to hear from you.
54:01
You can find me on on Facebook and on LinkedIn.
54:04
But again, I'm I'm, I'm trying to limit some of my social media
54:09
use these days for for various reasons.
54:12
But I'd love to hear from you if this spoke to you
54:14
scott.stewartspeaking@gmail.com. Yeah, folks, I'll leave that
54:18
down in the show notes so that you can find it quickly and
54:20
easily in the future. Well, Scott, thank, thank you so
54:29
much for joining me today on Unmasked and for being so open
54:32
and honest about your story. If something, if something in
54:36
this episode spoke to you, don't let it stop with you.
54:38
Share it with one person that God put on your heart while you
54:41
were listening. You never know where whose
54:43
breakthrough might start with just a simple message from you.
54:47
If you want encouragement, more information on me, you're having
54:51
me speak at your church or event, you can find me at
54:53
wesleyfarnsworth.com and make sure that you connect with the
54:57
Unmasked community online via all social media.
55:00
Until next time, remember that grace is greater than your past
55:05
and real freedom begins the moment that you choose to live
55:08
unmasked. God bless you.