Sorry I know some of you have had some terrible trauma in the past. I'm writing this for my own sake really.
Forgiveness I find elusive at times. I can repeat conversations I had in the past from years ago in my head, where I felt treated unfairly, scorned, spoken to with contempt, ridiculed, humiliated. I just felt like a loser and some of those people who I really looked up to, I had on a pedestal. So it hurt more. I am oversensitive by nature perhaps, which doesn't help.
Yet there were times in the past where I was a perpetrator too. I was abusive by insulting others. But my mind preferred to dwell on the times when I was victim.
It was so "unfair" and I felt powerless.
Enter Jesus. Crucifixion was kind of unfair. Especially for someone not guilty. See him complaining about his lot? Maybe once but more likely never.
The danger of feeling a victim is we think we were the only one who suffered. And it becomes all about us. But the gospel says life is all about others. Serving others in Christ. Self-pity is not healthy and distracts us from our purpose.
But I don't want minimise anyone's pain here. Just we need to be more aware of others' pain than our own, perhaps.
Forgiveness I find elusive at times. I can repeat conversations I had in the past from years ago in my head, where I felt treated unfairly, scorned, spoken to with contempt, ridiculed, humiliated. I just felt like a loser and some of those people who I really looked up to, I had on a pedestal. So it hurt more. I am oversensitive by nature perhaps, which doesn't help.
Yet there were times in the past where I was a perpetrator too. I was abusive by insulting others. But my mind preferred to dwell on the times when I was victim.
It was so "unfair" and I felt powerless.Enter Jesus. Crucifixion was kind of unfair. Especially for someone not guilty. See him complaining about his lot? Maybe once but more likely never.
The danger of feeling a victim is we think we were the only one who suffered. And it becomes all about us. But the gospel says life is all about others. Serving others in Christ. Self-pity is not healthy and distracts us from our purpose.
But I don't want minimise anyone's pain here. Just we need to be more aware of others' pain than our own, perhaps.
