I have been daydreaming, thinking about leaving
Grudgeville for a while now. I have thought about
what I will take with me, what I will sell, what I will leave behind without
ever looking back.
Where is Grudgeville, you ask? It is where I have been living, unhappily,
for a few months now. Grudgeville
attracts the broken, the angry, the resentful, the abused, the addicted, the
victim. It is not a very nice place to
live. The homes are run down, the streets full of trash, abandoned buildings
and broken windows. It is overpopulated. This is not a place to raise kids!
I began asking myself how I would ever move away from this
awful place. What steps did I need to
take? Who did I need to talk to? Who would I leave behind? What rights would I
give up when surrendering my citizenship?
What would I gain by leaving? What would happen if I stayed
indefinitely? Would I die here? I don’t know the answers to all these
questions. Some of them I hope never to
find out.
Jarrid Wilson, in his Grudgeville post, writes:
"STOP:
I know what you’re thinking.
“But you don’t realize what they did to me.”
“You don’t understand how much they hurt me.”
And to be honest, you’re probably right. But that’s the point of Grace. It’s not earned, but everyone deserves a second chance anyway. Why? Because at one point, it was given to you.
All throughout our lives we will encounter people who will chew us up and spit us out, but that doesn’t mean you get a free ticket to Grudgeville. Grudgeville is the place where leaders fall, families decay, relationships shatter and the population is “Your Choice.” So until you can make peace with your attacker, you’ll always be living as a defender. And to be honest, you don’t want to live a life in defense.
Every grudge dropped is grace given."
But I am ready. I am
selling my place here in Grudgeville. Do I have a "right" to be here? Some would say so.
But the truth is, I REALLY DON'T. The truth is, I don't deserve Grace. Neither do any of the citizens of Grudgeville or any neighboring towns. But, I have been given Grace nonetheless. Do those who have hurt me deserve Grace? No. But, I feel compelled to extend Grace because it was extended to me.
Grace is the very essence of who Jesus is. He extended grace to his rugged bunch of disciples, to Peter when he denied him, to the Samaritan woman at the well, to the woman who touched the hem of his garment, to Roman soldiers, tax collectors, the thief hanging on the cross next to him, to Judas, even to those who crucified Him. I mean, he was God after all, and he could have done anything he chose in those situations.
I hope you will walk with me as I make my journey out of Grudgeville. I am not sure how long it will take, how windy the road will be, and what pitfalls will happen along the way. I may need help moving the big pieces of furniture, I may need to be reminded of why I wanted to leave Grudgeville in the first place.
But leaving Grudgeville and embracing Grace equates to FREEDOM.
NOTE: If you haven't checked out PEOPLE OF THE SECOND CHANCE please take some time to do so!
I think that everything is a process and so is letting go. People chewing you up and spiting you out is an understatement.It's harder to deal with it when it is your entire pathilogical narcissitic family that has done this. Then when it comes from the so-called "Christians," then life takes on a whole different meaning.
ReplyDeleteIn this process, God has given me a lot of understanding of why these things have happened.But my life is still not back to normal and I don't know when it will be. My whole life has been shattered by all of this.I'm still trying to figure out were God is in all of this.
First I want to say that you're right about grace being the way out to freedom in Christ. You are very brave to share your journey.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, sometimes it's hard to tell Grudgeville apart from Woundedville. And sometimes the very people who tell us to "come out of" Grudgeville with their words are the same ones who are trying to force us in by their actions.
In a hierarchal system, which declares those toward the top as "more right compared to" those toward the bottom (by the very nature of their neo-Platonic view of "God's order"), slander is a frequent tool of the powerful. And many in the system behave as if they don't even know it's possible for leaders to commit the sin of slander against their subordinates. So the knee-jerk response is to declare victims of the system "bitter" and "unforgiving."
But is that really what's going on? On an individual basis, is woundedness sufficient grounds for the charge of "bitterness?" In the face of continued attack, is it meaningful to label self-defense as "unforgiveness?" Or do such accusations, in fact, reveal more about the accusers than the accused?
It is my position that many people created in God's image not only have been wounded by hierarchalism in the church, but also have been falsely declared to be citizens of "Grudgeville" against their will. Yes, there is such a thing as actual bitterness and unforgiveness, and these do require the remedy of grace. But the overall picture is a lot more complex, and far uglier, than hierarchalists want to paint it.
I do not believe for one minute that the sin of slander is God's will. Grace plus positon does not equal permission. Those leaders who practice slander may deceive others, and may even deceive themselves... but God is not deceived.