The Monster is Dead

It weird how the moment you find out the monster is dead; the one who robbed you of your innocence as a child, that your heart is conflicted. A few days ago, that figure passed away and now my heart aches with sadness in a different way. He was a person before the abuse, he was a person during the abuse, and he was still a person while serving his sentence in prison. However, he was a person with self serving behavior who took and used his agency, the power to act for oneself, for personal gratification with destructive results on innocent children.

He deserved every day in prison and he deserved to die there, and yet I still pity him. His life on earth is over and he WILL finally have to own up to all his horrible and selfish decisions that he made. He denied (most things) until his grave ,and now he will have no choice but to accept that he was ridiculously selfish, and that his actions harmed so many. 

So why?? Why did the moment I heard that his life had ended did I even feel remorse for this man, who had ruined so much in my life? Who had taken so much from me? I guess when I take a step back after a few days have passed ,that it was mostly because he lived so many years with the capabilities and capacities to finally come fully clean, and he chose not do it. He denied ,and self righteously assumed himself worthy of meeting his maker.

I got my justice on earth the minute that man was sentenced and sent to prison. However, justice still can't undo his actions. Justice can't replace those countless haunted memories from my youth. And worse... with him dying nothing changes for me. I'm the same. My life has still been affected, but the best realization I have come to, is that this monster can never fulfill the justice truly because he took something I can't get back, and yet I CAN and have been made whole time and time again by the grace of God and my Savior Jesus Christ. I'm not defined by the horrors that took place. I feel free from the pain that wrecked havoc on my self esteem and family all those years ago. No I'm not free because he is dead. I'm free because my Savior has made me whole. In Him I have found my worth and my value. 

 I'm free because I can wash my hands and know that God will hold him accountable. I'm free because I'll never have to stare down a board of pardons and tell them my story about why this monster can't be free. Today I'm free and the monster is dead.