Naomi Judd: Exclusive Interview – On Forgiveness

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At that time, I moved us back into the mountains of Kentucky with no TV or telephone for a year. In that solitude of going into the Kentucky Mountains, God really spoke to me and I realized it’s not what happens to you it’s what you do with it. In that period of time, that silence, that was where I experienced creative thought, that’s where my gut figured it out before my head got involved. I had a stroke of self forgiveness on that mountain top. And once you experience that, you want more.

OMTimes: What about forgiveness for those who have harmed you in your past, such as your mom? Naomi Judd: I knew at a young age that I couldn’t tell my mom [about the incest]. I was born into so much chaos. All that I wanted was to be acknowledged and appreciated. That didn’t happen.

Naomi Judd: I somehow have been able to see that everyone has a story. Everyone is wounded. And I just recognized with Uncle Charlie that something was wrong with him. Maybe he was born a pedophile. I forgave my mother because I knew that she had a hideous childhood. There’s arson, mass murder in my mom’s family of origin, she raised herself.

I’m still amazed to this day that she can walk and talk. I knew you can’t go to the hardware store to buy milk. I knew she was incapable of loving me in the way that child needs to be loved. We all have our journeys.