Victim No More

It is so easy for all of us to slip into being the victims of our circumstances.  Those attacking circumstances take varied shapes in our different lives.  Often for adoptive parents it is the children by adoption that take us to places of feeling like we are victims.  We try to justify that birth children also victimize us, but actually it is true that children from difficult places who have known trauma and abuse more naturally seem to bring chaos and pain and division oozing from their shattered souls.  It often does feel that the whole weight of generational pain and abuse bears down hard on any goodness that we try to give.  It can be an ongoing battle where often it feels like evil and pain triumph.  We repeatedly get blindsided by forces way beyond our control to change single-handedly.

Ultimately, regardless of the forces causing destruction in our children, that blackness does not need to triumph in our souls.  Although it is so easy to slip into the beleaguered position of the underdog, we are able to reach deep in ourselves to take hold and chose not to be victims.  Though others tell us that we have chosen this path, we have not.  We chose to try to help and to bring light.  We do not deserve the secondary trauma inflicted by the pain of our children.  We are worthy and have tried to take a risk for good.

Step out of the defeated skin of victimization.  Acknowledge your own gifts and love and use them in varied places.  Some of those places may bring forth more obvious fruit.  Take time away to get perspective.  Ask others for supportive hugs.  Share the pain.  Surround yourself with a warm and luminous shield of light that cannot let the darkness invade your own heart.  I start at my feet or head and feel the warm brightness fill me.  No one and no circumstance can stop that light in us.  We are not ultimately responsible for anyone else.  Our care for others is severely limited if we feel victimized by them or if they are too tightly wrapped around our hearts.  Let go.  Be full and free.  Even though it is not all perfect and sometimes tragedy abounds, still love, accept and forgive yourself.  Rest in God's support and trust His care and love  for all those others.

Let go victim self!  Be filled with the goodness of God.  Be still and content in the limits of being human and let God be God.  Pray constantly and let go.