Step Sixty-Five: Forgiving Isn't Easy

Dear Readers,

I both love and hate my psychology classes because they challenge me. They force me to grow and stretch and sometimes it hurts! Recently we've been talking about relational wounds. It also just so happens that God is talking to me about my wounds. To make a long story short: in this last month I have come face to face with a few of my very deep, very ugly wounds. I don't like facing my wounds. It requires I own up to a few things, a few scary things.

It requires I own up to the fact that something is not right. I don't know if you have ever dealt with your body or life breaking down, if you have ever realized in sheer terror, that something is wrong and you have absolutely no control over it. The realization that something is wrong with your heart and soul, with the very core of you, is horrifying.

It also requires that I face the wound-er. This is hard no matter what... but when the wound-er is still very present in your life it is even scarier, especially when the wound-er is not repentant in the slightest. In this instance it feels like I am saying "go ahead, hurt me again." What I have to remind myself of is the fact that forgiving is not forgetting. It is freeing them from captivity, it is relinquishing the hurt they caused to be healed by God, but it is not inviting them to do it again. In no way is saying "I forgive you" similar to "do it again." Actually, they are polar opposites.

Forgiving someone requires one very important thing: living within the realization that you have worth in His eyes. Saying "do it again" is living in the belief that you have no worth. In order to have the confidence to say "I forgive you" we have to live within the confidence of who God has created us to be. We have to recognize that we have been hurt, we have been wronged and we have to relinquish ourselves from that hurt. In this confidence we grow a new ability, an ability to say one life defining word: "no." When we are operating out of the knowledge that our life has meaning and purpose it enables us to set boundaries. We get to say "I mean more than this and you cannot treat me this way."

But forgiving isn't easy and thats okay. This might seem silly, but being a perfectionist, I get frustrated when I haven't forgiven someone. I get frustrated going through the process. I would prefer the process of forgiving was a one and done kind of thing. But perhaps this is what Jesus means when he says we're to forgive 70 times 7. It isn't that we're supposed to continually throw ourselves under the bus, it isn't that we are supposed to get hurt repeatedly. Perhaps what Jesus meant was that it is a process. It is a daily process of relinquishing. A process we will have to do 70 times 7 over again. It isn't easy. It isn't one and done. And that's okay. Instead of continually berating myself for how I feel like I've accomplished, I ought to celebrate the work I have done. As a hatching butterfly, I often get frustrated with the idea that I am not breaking my cocoon fast enough and I forget to rejoice in the metamorphosis that God is taking me through.

Step Sixty-Four: Why don't we talk to them?

Dear Readers,

Last night, I was listening to one of my peers talk about her experiences in Cambodia. Some of you may well know this, but Cambodia is one of the top countries involved in sex trafficking, especially children sex trafficking. In fact, in one small village Soltek, the entire economy is rooted in sex trafficking. As my peer was talking about these precious little girls, I was moved. These were real pictures or real children, children who came back beaten, raped, and hurting. Or to quote my friend "these aren't pictures of little girls like those being trafficked, these are the little girls being trafficked." She went on to explain that trafficking exists because of the demand for it and how this demand is fueled primarily by foreign men, primarily rich white men.This got me thinking. Then she mentioned how at night, they would be at a restaurant and at the next table was a white man and all she could think was "I know why you are here, I know what you're doing at night." She then said she didn't know what to do with that. That is when this wretched thought entered into my mind: why don't we talk to them? I hate this thought. It requires that I publicly say that we need to love pedophiles.... yet, truth is truth. We are called to the cause of orphans. We are called to love those sweet children who have been violated in ways that are not okay. But they are easy to love. Anyone can feel the child's plight and everyone should. But for as many sexually abused children get rescued out of that world, for as many as we "save" from that life, there is another parent eager to sell their bodies, another customer ready to buy, another child in need of saving. The sad reality is that we cannot just address the children in sex trafficking. We need to start addressing the violators, to start addressing the parents who are selling their children.

It would be so easy to urge you all to donate money, to take missions trips, to open your hearts and your arms to those sweet girls. Yet, within my own heart, there is a tightening when I mention opening your hearts and arms to those men. My stomach churns at the thought. How can I ask this of you? How can I ask this of myself? Yet, here I am. We need to love these men. In no way am I suggesting we justify their actions. No number of excuses will justify these men's choices to violate those sweet smiling faces. That will never be okay. But consider this: the majority of those pedophiles were sexually abused. Once upon a time, they were those sweet smiling faces. When did their smiles morph from being a child's broken innocence into a monster's leer? When they ceased to be small? When they grew up? When they first acted out their wounds on someone else? The answer is never. They are human. Yes, a broken and flawed human, but also a needy and terrified human. A human doing what they were taught. If we want to stop sex trafficking, we have to stop the demand. Paul reminds us that it is easy to love our friends and hard to love our enemies but here is the harsh reality of our call today: it is easy to love those children and it is hard to love those pedophiles but we are called to love both.

I'm not sure what to do with this thought. I'm not. Should I fly to Cambodia, hang out in the brothels, walk the streets of Soltek at night? I don't know. But my question to you, my question for my friend, and most importantly my question for myself is if I meet that man, if I am at the table beside his, why don't I talk to him?

Step Sixty-Three: He is Simple

Dear Readers,

I like to make God complicated. I do. He is never just who He says He is. It isn't that I think He is lying... it is that I don't trust Him (yeah, I know it is the same thing). But God is God. His being may be extraordinarily complex, but He is simple. When He says "I love you" He means "I love you." He is constant and unchanging. He does not change his mind, He does not have regrets. He just is. I like this about Him...

The youtube video that acted as background music and partial inspiration. I just thought it was super powerful...