12/29/2017 0 Comments #MetooPop Star, Kesha, released a song called “Praying” earlier this year. It is a soulful ballad about her struggles in the music industry, particularly with her producer her was both mentally and sexually abusive to her. It’s a powerful song about recovering from victimization and the hopelessness and depression that stems from abusive relationships. The #Metoo movement has shed light on the alarming amount of woman who have endured sexual violence or discrimination, and this song could be the anthem for freedom we have been waiting for only it stops short of the truth.
At the end of the song she proclaims, “Oh, some say in life, you’re gonna get what you give. But some things in life, only God can forgive.” This is where the song loses momentum and her more worldly view of forgiveness and healing becomes apparent. Forgiving leads to true healing and strength, without it the seed of bitterness still has fertile soil in which to grow. Harboring resentment seems normal and justified when we judge others by our own wounding, but our flawed, human understanding of life is not the perspective we are to use. It took me years to realize this fact. I had to “see” Christ hanging on the cross before I fully caught on. I’m not sure how other people play out conversations in their heads, but my affinity for the stage has led me to see life and memories from the other side of the forth wall (in acting, an invisible, imagined wall that separates the actors from the audience.) The scene I witnessed when I finally realized what true forgiveness is went a little like this: I was crying out in my hopelessness, yelling into a dark, dungeon-like room all the wrongs that had ever been done to me. My obsession with my own pain had caused me to hurt those around me that I loved. I could see the hurt I caused, and I couldn’t understand why I did it. I was living the very true statement of “Hurting people, hurt people.” To the world, I appeared fairly stable and just slightly intense. But I was slowly unraveling on the inside. (Cue the eerie music and mood lighting for a dramatic scene). God was standing on the other side of a rough-hewn table sternly admonishing me for my lack of forgiveness, my lack of empathy for my abusers, and my general pissy attitude towards life. I was the defiant heroine pleading her case to a hard-nosed judge. Classic movie stuff that engenders sympathy for the strong yet vulnerable star. (Yes, I have quite the fantasy world in my head.) “How can I forgive what happened?” I shouted at him. “I was innocent. I was a child. How did you let this happen?” “Do you know what it is like to be betrayed by someone who is supposed to love and care for you? Do you know what it like to have a loved one lie about you? Have you any idea how much it hurts to be hurt by someone you care about?” My head hung low in shame and grief as I explained my side of the situation to a God who already knew. Then he spoke, “Yes. Yes, I do. Look at me and see.” I looked up from my self-made plot of misery and saw not a stern, heartless judge, but a savior on a cross. His large, loving eyes peered down on me “I, too, was abused, lied about, betrayed, and hurt by those I love. I really do understand what you went through. And I choose to forgive. My death has no meaning without the grace of forgiveness.” “But you are God, you are bigger and better than me, of course you can forgive.” “You can too. Freedom lies on the other side of mercy just make the choice to do it. If I, a sinless savior can forgive the sins of the world, you can forgive too.” Then he gave me a little wink that meant more was coming, but I wouldn’t necessarily like it. “Do you see the whip marks on my back where the skin has been scourged off? The third one down on the left that’s from when you lied to Mrs. Long in third grade. Should I enumerate the wrongs you did that placed this crown of thorns on my brow? Your finger prints are on the hammer that pounded these stakes into my hands and feet. YOUR sins put me up on this cross. YOU killed me. Do you think that you are better than me? That I should forgive, and you shouldn’t?! Pull your head out, child!” He had a point. The line from Rose Tico in The Last Jedi sums it up nicely, “I saved you, dummy. That’s how we’re gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.” The attitude that Kesha has in the song sounds right, but is so wrong. If God can forgive, we must as well. The three spikes that that scarred his hands and feet don’t just symbolize the three “big” sins that humans see as somehow more heinous than the other “lesser” sins. Murder, rape, and sexual sin (or whatever your own personal hierarchy of sins is) weren’t the only things that nailed him up there. White lies, small fibs, and mindless gossip stuck him to the cross as well. Holding onto animosity because we feel justified to hate never helps. Continued, conscientious forgiveness that defies earthly logic isn’t a choice, but a mandate. I pray that the someday soon a celebrity will write a song that expresses this truth with a catchy beat and meaningful lyrics. How awesome it would be to see an outbreak of forgiveness in this nation and the world!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI am a Christian, a wife, a mom, and a part-time basket case who wants to be a full time writer.
Archives
January 2023
Categories
All Believing When It Is Hard Boldness Courage Gifting Healing Intentional Leading My Story My Words The Retreat |