Deep Wishes for My Future Self

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 Fascinating.

"If you're holding on to frustration [at what happened to you], then that's you saying, 'Well, I blame God. He let this happen to me. Where was He in all that?' Then you might want to talk to Him about that."

"There's no such word as 'can't' in the Bible. We don't find that concept in Scripture."

"Jesus came to heal and restore all things."

"Take every [remembrance of abuse, every trigger] thought captive in Christ."

It's so much easier said than done. May He help me to not lose sight of how very heavy a young person's cross can be.

Look: Someday others will have words for what happened to them, and they will use them. Don't assume you know how quickly that healing or restoration is supposed to happen. Don't assume they blame anyone but themselves or their abuser; assume they have discussed it at length with their God, trying to unlearn Him as consistently wrathful, dispassionate and disappointed; try to imagine them struggling earnestly to see and know Him as kind and as gentle as a Father holding a newborn, even though that baby may be grown by several years.

It is so much easier said than done. And it is so much easier, once done, to forget the great difficulty of even beginning.

The abused, young Christian needs so much patience, so much more kindness. We cannot be cavalier towards suffering, and the cruel ability of the mind to capture it as if on film, and to later replay it all at the slightest suggestion that it should. 

(Note that I do not speak directly to any one person; respectfully, I challenge only myself to remember, and hope the future spotless Bride, who, as of this moment, stands stained due to the efforts of humankind, will mercifully do the same. I'm not saying I will refuse to see His hand in my life, right now, as an incredibly blessed woman with good things just over the horizon. I'm just begging the Bride to be gentle, and begging myself not to grow old, to not forget how hard it is to be young and surrounded by those who have it figured out, or at least those feigning that they do.)

Christ stands ready to receive all of us, old and young, wise and unwise, angry and peaceful. Hopefully, in our quests against false doctrines, political leanings that offend us, and verses in Bethel songs that dance dangerously close to heresy, we learn to embrace the wounded Christian the way He does. To not lose sight of our responsibility as the Body to keep our arms open, and our "sharp, two-edged sword" sheathed instead of extended, inadvertently or deliberately lacerating every brother and sister in our path. To wield responsibly around those outside, and those who were once inside that ran for shelter the first chance they got...

"Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person." – Colossians 4:6 ESV
"O Lord, if you heal me, I will be truly healed; if you save me, I will be truly saved. My praises are for you alone!" – Jeremiah 17:14 NLT

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