…It’s not a matter of whether I love God, but of whether I know he loves me, and what my understanding of that love is.
If you love me, let go of the hurt.
But justice…
No, let go. Do you not know that as deeply as you are hurt right now, as angry as you are about the injustice done, I am more? You are my child. Give it to me. Let me go seek out the troublesome one. Let me take care of this for you. I love you. I don’t want you to hurt. Just as the father would seek out those who hurt his daughter, so I will seek out those who hurt you, my daughter.
I’ve never known that kind of parent.
It’s ok. Let me be that father to you. Let my love flourish in you, cover you, protect you, heal you. Let go of your right—
But I do have a right!
Yes, you do, as a human who was treated unjustly. But you do not have that right as my child. As one who is truly mine, relinquish that right. Just as a bullied child cheers her dad for going and dealing with the bully for her, let me be your hero. Let me take care of this. Yield it to me. Trust me. Let me love you. In our relationship, the right is not yours. It is mine. And that is also love.
It’s not a matter of “forgive and forget”. It’s not a matter of forgiving at all. However, vengeance is not mine. I can speak out, I can defend myself and others, I can help others to understand. These things are right. But carrying what has happened, keeping it in the front of my mind, seeking vengeance, these are not what’s best for me. And so he asks me and others to do the impossible, to run to him after we’ve been hurt by people who’ve used his name wrongly, to see past what they said about him and trust.
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Author: Through Grace
I was raised in a somewhat unhealthy church group within the Nondenominational Christian Church. After graduating high school, I began attending a United Pentecostal Church (UPC). I've been a member of four UPC churches and visited many others. Of the four of which I was a member, I was "encouraged" not to leave the first and then later sent to the second; attended the second where an usher repeatedly attempted to touch me and the pastor told me I should not care about the standards of the organization and was wrong to do so; ran to a third at that point, which threw me out after a couple years; and walked out of a fourth. For these transfers and because I refused to gossip about my former churches, some called me a "wandering star, a cloud without water" (Jude 1:12).
I love the fact that when the blind man was healed, questioned by the Pharisees and temple rulers, and expelled from the temple, Jesus went and sought him out. He very rarely did this once someone was healed, but for this man, he did. I believe God has a special place in his heart for those who are abused, wrongfully accused, or condemned by religious leadership. I believe He loves those who are wronged by churchianity--yes, churchianity, not Christianity, because those who do these wrongs follow a church, not Christ.
1 John 4:7-8
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
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