"You Say 'Victim' Like It's a Bad Thing..."

I can honestly say I have been a victim. Does that mean I AM a victim?

If you say the word ‘victim’ in today’s world, more than likely a team of people will try to shut that message down and tell you to stop being a victim and not behave ‘victimized’.

Uh. That is almost right.

But not quite.

There is such a thing as something happening to you that you have no control over that does you harm.  It is okay to know that, recognize it for what it is and seek healing in truth.

Problem: Someone has to be responsible. 

Solution: Figure out who is responsible.

Problem: Blame.

Of course, blame carries shame.  Emotional punishment.

Responsibility carries the weight of having to answer for what is done.

Problem: Innocence (the position of a victim) often has a tenderness that blames itself because recognizing another’s responsibility feels like judging or blaming. Easier to take it on yourself.

Another problem: Innocence that assumes the blame.

Compounded problem: Innocence that assumes the blame and internalizes the judgment for the one who did the harm.

Super-duper compounded problem:  An innocent is self-blamed, lacks the ability to trust and ends up being secretly bitter because the internal cry for justice is not satisfied.

Mondo-muther-lode-super-duper compounded problem:  An innocent person is traumatized, lives out of the fear of being victimized again, cannot forgive because forgiving 'feels' like it violates internal sense of justice and the person ends up judging others.

Mondo-condo-muther-lode-super-duper magnificent absolutely perfect answer: 

“God?”

 Well, where was He, anyway??

Before there was time, He existed. When time is finished, He will still be. The in-between is the great experience of life. All around us, people are making choices. We love having choices. We fight for choices.  

                             We are a victim if we have no choice when being wronged.

God gives us all a choice. Perhaps you, like I, have been a victim of someone making wrong choices. 

We have the power to choose.  When God gave us free will to choose—He made us so we are not forced to love and submit to Him as victims/slaves to His will—but to love and submit to Him as sons.

True freedom is the power of choice yielded to His wisdom.

The power to choose is an amazing endowment. It is meant to be yielded to God who will guide us according to His will and purposes. Without that guidance, we choose foolishly, recklessly, and even harm people we love because we are not, without His perspective, able to choose with a higher wisdom.

We have a selfish nature.

Have you been hurt by the choices of another person's selfish nature? 

To get out of the victim cycle, we must forgive. But, ahhhhhh, that sense of justice we have! 

Can we accept the challenge to forgive—as we have been forgiven? And trust the ultimate perfect judgment to be measured out by a perfect God and not by us?

To forgive is to resign as judge.

To be unforgiving is to say, “I am the judge.” Not only that, you may reserve the 'right to punish'.

Do we really want to be the judge of mankind?  

                 We who beg for mercy for ourselves?

An unrighteous judge will further victimize others.

And so it continues.

“Father God. By Your Grace, I step off the treadmill of victim/judge/victimize. I forgive those who have hurt me even as I stand each day and ask for forgiveness for myself. I trust You as the Judge of all. The people I have held in my fist—in my walled-up heart—I  give to You. I know You will do what is right. Please heal my wounds and I pray for healing for those I have hurt. Open my heart and mind to Your perspective—because my own perspective has not worked very well. As I trust You, teach me to trust again and give me Wisdom. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”