A Shattered Life: Victor Vs. Victimনমুনা

### The Shattering It happens. You are journeying along and then a rock of painful circumstances hits the windshield of your life creating a starburst crack. It may be a huge rock or many small pebbles, but when it happens there is the initial break, and if untended, the pain becomes vulnerable to further damage. Your shattering could have been because of financial woes, or a relationship that was damaged by another person making bad choices. Maybe it’s your own struggle with addiction or with being miserable that you are overweight. Maybe it’s marriage issues, or the fact that you can’t ever find the right person to marry. It could be the loss of a child or another loved one, or a loved one who tried to take their own life. It may be several of these things at once! These crushing, despairing cracks of pain can spread subtly and slowly into many areas of your life, often making you fall into victim mentality without even knowing it. I know it did for me! As Christians we know the fruits of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness... Did you learn the verse like I did, along with the typical Sunday school lessons that we must bear good fruit by perfect behavior to get to heaven? (That’s how my immature mind interpreted them many times anyway.) Then the trauma—the starburst—happens. And feelings of love, joy, peace and all the beautiful words that echo in the scriptures and popular Bible verses sound like broken glass, crushing, streaking, tearing...echoing...echoing...haunting in their ghost-like performance. Then the voices start in your head taunting, “You know where you go if you bear bad fruit! Hee-hee-hee!” These wonderful words of Jesus don’t seem as comforting now because that’s not what you’re feeling in the pain. How do you cope? You stuff your negative feelings. And you keep feeling more, and you stuff more. The pain keeps hammering, and you stuff, and stuff, and stuff your feelings until you’ve made a good, nice, strong wall of stuffing. That wall might as well be made out of superman-undestructable-titanium, dripping a tar-like muck with feelings of bitterness, hate, and anger. And there you are, cowering under the wall—a victim, with well-trenched mental pathways of victim mentality. Conquered. Defeated. Unworthy. Unusable….right where the enemy wants you. If these feelings trigger a similar refrain in your head and heart, or if you know someone who struggles with these thoughts, I invite you to join me in discovering how we can live with this sometimes constant pain and still live victoriously, rather than as a victim. Today take a moment and ask God to reveal some areas of pain in your life. This might hurt and could break open scars you thought you were done with. But in order to bring true salve to your wounds, you have to get raw and vulnerable...even if it means you have feelings that don’t seem to line up with the fruits of the Spirit. Jot down those painful areas or events and sit in meditation for a while allowing yourself to feel, holding nothing back, inviting God into your feelings no matter how rough and messy they are.