#metoo - What I'm Thinking

It’s on every social media site these past few days. 

6 keyboard characters that have created a public firestorm out of our private hells. 

And in case you’re wondering, yes, 

#metoo

As I scroll through my account feeds, time and again I see these words posted by friend after friend after friend. 
I want to reach through the screen and hug them tight. 

I want to tell them that what happened to them before doesn’t have to define them now. 

I want to tell them that they are loved and valued and cherished and they are absolutely NOT what someone in their past tried to make them into. 

And for every #metoo I see, I wonder how many more are out there, unseen. 

Their pain and their shame and their fear holding them hostage to a past they don’t know how to escape no matter how much they try. My heart breaks for them. 

I have a lot of thoughts about all of this painful pot-stirring. 

A lot of random thoughts, but the one that’s most insistent in my mind is this:

I may be #metoo but I am not a victim. 

I am a victor. 

The uninvited touching and harassments I experienced as early as elementary school are things that happened TO me. 

Those events caused me fear and shattered my trust in some people and institutions that I’d been taught to respect. 

Those events, in some ways, changed how I viewed the world around me and the men in my life as I grew into adulthood. 

But those men aren’t every man and they don’t represent the men in my life who have loved me and cherished me and valued me. 

Just as those events that happened TO me, in no way, shape or form define me. 

I am not a victim and those events don’t define me because I’ve made a choice. 

A few choices actually. 

Choices that wouldn’t be possible in my strength alone. 

I’ve chosen to look forward instead of behind me. 

My life is in front of me. 

Living in shame and fear and pain only hurts me - and those I love. It has no effect on the ones who caused me pain. 
Their power over me was in the pain they inflicted and I have chosen to not allow them that power by letting them take up space in my head. 

I’d much rather fill that space with joy and grace and peace. 

Characteristics my abusers will likely never understand.

I’ve chosen to use what happened to me to educate my daughter.

To teach her that she is loved and cherished and valued, no matter what. 

I’m not naive by any means, I know that she has been and will be objectified, demeaned and yes, she may yet be abused - God forbid. 

But by teaching her and showing her how to embrace the truth of who she is, and how deeply she is loved, it lessens any power that someone’s evil intentions or actions might have on her. 

I’ve chosen to forgive. 

As someone who has been forgiven so much in my life, I cannot hold back forgiveness for someone else. 

I serve a Jesus who gave up his life so that all could be forgiven for their sins and their shame. 

All. 

It’s a hard truth, but Jesus died for my abusers on the same cross that he died on for me. 

And if I’m being honest, sometimes I hate that truth. 

But I love my Jesus. 

And it’s he who has healed me. 

He who has made me clean and whole and new again. 

He tells me to trust him, to follow him and leave the pain and shame in the past where it belongs. 

My life is in him. 

His grace defines me and he has forgiven me my sin. 

And He calls me to hard things like forgiveness. 

Very hard things like praying for those who have hurt me. 

Praying that they find peace and healing freedom in him as well. 

Forgiveness doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve justice - on the contrary. 

We serve a just God who will call all of us to account for what we’ve done.

But forgiveness releases me from the past. 

And because Jesus did the hardest thing for me, I choose to forgive in order to honor him.