An Apology to Old Friends and Acquaintances

This apology is being shared publicly and to a large number of people I have known through school, church, neighborhood, work, and hobby. Therefore, it cannot state specifics. If I found you on social media and have have directed you here to read this, then there is something (maybe multiple things) I am sorry for and you probably know / remember what was done.

I do not write this to excuse myself ... I admit I was simply wrong. Instead, this is written as a brief explanation of why things happened. If you want a more thorough explanation, you can visit the Learning to Follow the Good Shepherd page of this website where I elaborate on many details.

My Quest to Understand Life

Few of you would have known that as a teenager I was suicidal ... and that this episode of my life sent me on a personal quest to try and understand life. Somehow, between this, what I was taught in school, and what I learned from television and Hollywood I had an absolutely poor understanding of what things would be considered public (willingly shared with many), personal (shared with a select few), and private (not really shared). I would routinely cross those boundaries. I was insensitive. I was invasive. My quest for understanding life got out of control and was used in my mind to justify doing many things. On rare occasions I went so far as to break a trust.

What surprises me looking back on those times is I really had no idea how much these actions would hurt other people ... especially emotionally. I was not an active believer at that time. It seemed that society had taught me to be competitive and do whatever was necessary to reach the top ... and certainly on television and in movies the consequences were minimized or non-existent. So, I was genuinely shocked a few times when strong reactions came back at me ... but those were the very things that made me start to re-think what I was doing.

Becoming a Believer

I started reading the Bible and became an active believer when I was almost 30 years old. Did this fix everything? No ... it just marks the time when I started the long and slow process of improving myself through physical determination. It would be another decade or two before I understood the spiritual aspects of this battle. Suddenly, not only were the battles easier, but many of them have been won. And now I am left shaking my head at the things I have previously done.

More recently, I have been learning the value of seeking healing and peace [for both parties involved]. In some cases, it means dealing with past issues that may still be uncomfortable. I am sorry for what I did. I hope you can forgive me. I am not the person I was 20, 30, and even 40 years ago.

If you would like to talk about anything, please feel free to either respond on social media or, more privately, at towiel211@gmail.com

Sincerely,

Todd Elder