Victim

If there is one thing in the world that stirs up righteous anger in me it is seeing an innocent person victimized. There are victims, and then there are innocent victims. A victim is anyone who gets hurt by someone else's bad choice or behavior. An innocent victim is anyone who had no level of responsibility whatsoever for being in the place or circumstance that resulted in becoming a victim. A woman may get hurt by her husband's bad behavior, but even though that is despicable and she probably didn't deserve it, there is still a chain of consequence that can be traced back to the fact that she chose to marry him. (At least that is the case most of the time in our culture. For a Middle Eastern woman it's a different story altogether.)

But what rationalization can possibly be contrived for hurting a child? Could a seven year old child have any level of responsibility whatsoever for an adult taking advantage of her and leaving her scarred for life? What about ten years old? Fourteen? Jesus had some pretty scary comments on child abuse. As I read it, He said that anyone who causes a child to sin would be better off being thrown into the depths of the sea with a millstone around his neck. I've seen a few millstones. It sounds like a one way ride to me. Let the creatures that clean the filth from the bottom of the sea take care of the scum.

If only it were that simple. I think my anger is justified and can be supported biblically, but at some point the anger must intersect with forgiveness. My own sin sent Jesus to the cross. It cost Him his life. And Jesus was more innocent than anyone who ever lived, including the infant who just took his first breath of air. But, in spite of his innocence, He willingly (and even gladly) forgave me of every sin I have ever committed simply because I asked him to and put my trust in him for gaining access to God and heaven and a worthy life on this earth. He did nothing to deserve that ugly death, and I did nothing to deserve his forgiveness. Quite a conundrum.

I've done a lot of thinking about forgiveness in the past few months. The concept is simple enough, and the reasons are compelling. Forgiveness involves letting go of my right to be angry or vindictive toward my offender or the offender of someone I love. I need to do this for my own well-being, lest bitterness take control of my soul and I become someone I never wanted to be. Whether or not the offender benefits from my forgiveness is a separate issue and has to be considered apart from the benefits to me. But forgiveness is not optional if I am to obey my Lord and if I am to avoid a hardening of my soul, but sometimes the path to forgiveness is filled with potholes and boulders. Right now I'm crawling out of a pothole and facing a boulder. I know there is forgiveness at the end of this path, but I'm not sure how I'm going to get there. One thing for certain, it will be only by God's grace.

One of the imponderables is that, although I am stumbling along this path toward forgiveness of someone for victimizing a child I love, I am not the child, nor am I the child's mother. Each of them has a totally different course to follow in finding their way to that necessary end if they are to escape becoming hardened and bitter. The irony is that the child has the advantage. The very one who was victimized and was utterly innocent is the one who has the greatest capacity to forgive with the least amount of struggle, providing she is given timely and godly counsel. In the same place where Jesus spoke about what the child abuser deserves, He said that we all need to humble ourselves and become like little children. A child loves without an agenda. What kind of love could be closer to the love of Jesus than that? No wonder she is held up as the role model for us to follow.

And what about the offender? He desperately needs forgiveness, though he may or may not even recognize that need yet. What hope does he have of ever being trusted by anyone again? What kind of miracle is required for him to have a life worth living from this day forward? What kind of hellish course does his sorry carcass have to travel before he finds the true value of his soul and the forgiveness that will set him free from the complexities of his deserved condemnation?

I'm glad I'm not God.

And next there's the issue of trust to contend with. {sigh}