Less of me, more of You

When I accepted my job as an advocate, I was a little nervous. I knew it could be stressful, but I also knew that there was no one better to advocate for victims than a survivor. Survivors have been there, they know how it feels. They know the emotions, fears, and thought process a victim goes through. It was something I truly wanted to do... needed to do.

It's funny how we can look back and see God's hand in things, after the fact. Things we thought we just did or we thought "just happened" in our lives, without praying, without asking for His help. Or in many cases, praying for the wrong thing. Yet, still He works it out in His glorious, wonderous ways. Because that's what He does. He turns our messes into messages.

Before I started training as an advocate, I THOUGHT I had dealt with my past. Little did I know. What I realize now is that God put me in the role as an advocate to help me see how much of my past was still hidden in the dark places of my heart. Those places no one ever gets to see and I had tucked away so deep, that even I had forgotten about some of them.

And He did it so gently, so carefully. Each training, each victim I worked with shined a little more light in those dark places, until finally, I had no choice but to admit I needed His help once again. But this time was different. This time a broken, battered, shame-stricken 22 year old wasn't pleading for her life. This time a 55 year old, daughter of the King came humbly to the Father and asked for help. Knowing she would be surrounded and supported by the prayers of those who love her.

Love and forgiveness. The Bible is filled with love and forgiveness.

Love and forgiveness. They go hand in hand. I don't think you can have one without the other, or do one without the other. I recently heard a pastor say that unforgiveness is like you drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. And I cannot get that out of my head! He summed up years of my life in one sentence! It is truly a poison. One I've tasted more than once. I'm not saying we have to love and gush over the people who have wronged us, but we are called to forgive them. And carrying around that unforgiveness makes it really hard to love others in our life.

In fact, it's usually the people closest to us that pay the biggest price. Not only do they see our hurt and our struggle, but they are usually the victims of our anger and our fears. They are the ones who deal with our attitudes and emotions when our past is eating away at us and the nightmares won't let us sleep. They are the ones who shoulder the weight of not knowing what is wrong with us when we won't share our secrets.

And how can I possibly hold anyone on this earth to a standard different than the one Christ held me to? How can I look at someone and say - I don't forgive you - when I know Christ gave His life for me? Christ died in exchange for all my sins and I have the audacity to say to someone - "Sorry, life's not fair, justice must be served MY way." I don't think so!

In those moments, what we fail to realize, what I fail to realize, is that judgement is not up to me. It is up to God and God alone. He is the only one capable of deciding what is fair and what is just. And if I can't trust Him to make that decision, why am I trusting Him to make ANY decision! Forgiveness is the basis of my faith!

The word “forgive” means to wipe the slate clean, to pardon, to cancel a debt. It doesn't mean that we forget. We shouldn't forget! I don't want to forget what Christ did for me! That slate was wiped clean FOR ME! And if I ever forget, that means I have forgotten the abundance of His grace and His mercy also.

And I don't want to forget my past. It has made me who I am today. It has allowed God to turn me into a person capable of forgiving her abusers. A person willing to step into a world of victims and perpetrators that most people never see and don't want to see. A person who longs to see Christ in action in this world. A woman who knows that no matter how crazy or ugly it gets, I am not alone. I'll never be alone. And I am not afraid, because the One who walks beside me is the King.

I have learned so many things over the past few years. Sometimes I feel the older I get, the more I learn or need to learn. Maybe I've just become more teachable. Or maybe it's God working on me - be more transparent, be more vulnerable. But through it all, one thing has grown stronger. Less of me and more of Him. It is my daily prayer.

John 3:30 NIV

He must become greater; I must become less.