Two years ago today I asked my girlfriend to marry me…on her birthday. And she said yes! On 7/2/11 we were married!

I just wanted to take a minute to tell the world that I love my wife.

I won’t sugar coat anything…life has gotten a lot harder. Instead of one life of difficulties, I have two to wade through. But I’m not alone in the hard times. Even though I have way more “problems” than I did when I was single, Hannah is there beside me, drawing me closer to Jesus, our Savior. She knows she doesn’t have all the answers, and so she points me to the One who does. And for that, I cannot say enough how thankful I am.

Love you boo.

Katniss Everdeen.

She is trapped in a broken system of violence, poverty, and societal expectations.

The Hunger Games serve as a grim reminder of the failed uprising of Districts 1-13 in Panem almost a century prior to the setting of the books. Now, there are only 12 Districts (officially). 13 was destroyed by the incomparable Capitol. Filled with the “best” Panem has to offer, the Capitol also houses the infamous President Snow.

Snow’s hatred for our Katniss is sparked by her stunt she pulled in the 74th Hunger Games. Her and the male Tribute from 12, Peeta, almost committed suicide. You see, the Games only have one victor in the 24 contestants (2 from each District, male and female). The rest are killed by the other Tributes til one is crowned victor.

Katniss and Peeta are stopped, both being crowned victors in the 74th Hunger Games.

And so it begins.

I’ll forego a synopsis of the other two books (Catching Fire and Mockingjay), because I want to focus more on the people than the actual books.

Peeta loves Katniss, while receiving absolutely nothing in return. He sets himself up for hurt after hurt, but he still loves. Katniss is confused, but never truly reciprocates until the final pages of the final series.

In those three sentences lie a truth completely obscured from our self-centered culture’s “me-relationships”.

As Tim Keller points out in his new book The Meaning of Marriage, we’ve lost a love for one other. Even in our relationships, it’s about us staying the same, and the other person adapting to our wants and “needs”. The idea that relationships are about receiving, not sharing is killing marriage as a whole.

Self-sacrificial love is an unheard of concept, and is detestable to our human nature.

But Suzanne Collins thinks it should be more than that. I would agree with her.

Relationships are more complex that “just” feelings or emotion. They are complex down to the core of our souls, and Katniss and Peeta capture that beautifully.

Some people would make an argument that there is only one person out there, a “soulmate” if you will. So what they do is they wait and wait to get married, all the while tasting all different kinds of people (figuratively and literally) in an attempt to find this soul mate.

I hate to break it to you. There are no such things as soulmates. Not in the sense that our American culture has defined for us anyway. Marriage isn’t about you. It’s about the other spouse, and how you must choose to serve them day in and day out. This doesn’t match up to the “perfect” me-marriages our culture sets the standard of. There’s no such thing as “get married and life will be easy because I will constantly receive and never have to give anything.” That world doesn’t exist. Marriage is about commitment. If you don’t have that, then you’ll just add to the upsetting divorce statistics.

Christians, please don’t get me wrong! The person you marry is the person you are to be committed to, and in that sense a “soulmate” type of thing is worked out. However, the idea that we can sit on our haunches to be served by a “soulmate” is the thinking I’m attempting to flesh out.

On a different note, and in light of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I’d like to start a discussion on Katniss and how she morphs through the series.

After the Hunger Games, her life is changed forever by what seems to be PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Even the slightest sight, sound, smell, or touch sends her back into the midst of the uncomprehendable pain of the Games, and she needs to be reconstructed again and again into something that resembles a functioning human being.

This is the experience of assault victims.

In fact, next to war veterans, sexual assault victims report the highest PTSD symptoms of any other demographic. Why?

Sexual assault doesn’t just damage the body. It damages the soul. The damage done flows through every aspect of their being until they’re utterly destroyed in every sense. In the words of one of my friends, ”The places that once were safe became the sources of pain and hurt.”

I was co-teaching Sunday School at Fellowship Bible Church recently on Judges 19 and 20, the Levite and his concubine.

The Scriptures recount a horrific period of Israel’s history, where a Levite was staying in a strangers house for the night when the house was surrounded by men who wanted to rape him. Rather than allowing this, he threw his concubine outside for the men to have instead. I’ll let Scripture tell exactly what went on:

the man seized his concubine and took her outside to them. They raped her and abused her all night until morning. At daybreak they let her go. 26 Early that morning, the woman made her way back, and as it was getting light, she collapsed at the doorway of the man’s house where her master was.
27 When her master got up in the morning, opened the doors of the house, and went out to leave on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, collapsed near the doorway of the house with her hands on the threshold. 28 “Get up,” he told her. “Let’s go.” But there was no response.

-Judges 19:25-26 HCSB

The implication here is that the men raped her until death.

Now, these types of stories are not uncommon in Scripture, they’re just rarely ever taught. So the class tried to make light of it. A common response to something so repulsive.

I was never taught this passage when I was a kid. It was one of the first times I had read through this story, and it made me want to throw up. Not only because it was horrible, but because I know of people that would consider this woman lucky because she died. She didn’t have to live through each day wondering when it would happen next.

I shared with the class just before they left that statistics would indicate that one of the girls and two of the guys in the room have been sexually assaulted. The room got very quiet. I explained how common this atrocity is, and how the proper response isn’t to make light, but to address the issue with grace and humility.

It made me sad, that no one is educated on how to respond to sexual abuse, though it is so prevalent. I want to do my part by opening communication with me as a safe place for victims to run to. I also want to share this group of articles to help as many people as I can with the Gospel of Jesus.

http://theresurgence.com/categories/sexual-assault

So at this point I’ll apologize for not being a great writer and for all that being hard to follow Find me on twitter (@shrankaplooza) or on Facebook (facebook.com/shrankaplooza) or on Google + (Jesse Gruber) and we can talk more about the books, or sexual assault.

Introduction

But beneath these philosophical objections (to marriage) lies a snarl of conflicted personal emotions, born out of many negative experiences with marriage and family life.

Marriage did not evolve in the late Bronze Age as a way to determine property rights.

Marriage is God’s idea.

Plenty of people who do not acknowledge God or the Bible, yet who are experiencing happy marriages, are largely abiding by God’s intentions, whether they realize it or not. But it is far better if we are conscious of those intentions and the place to discover them is in the writings of the Scriptures.

…The biblical authors’ teaching constantly challenged their own cultures’ beliefs-they were not simply a product of ancient mores and practices. We cannot, therefore, write off the biblical view of marriage as one-dimensionally regressive or culturally obsolete.

Chapter One- The Secret of Marriage

I’m tired of listening to sentimental talks on marriage. (Literally the first line of chapter 1 )

Cohabitation is an understandable response from those who experienced their own parents’ painful divorces, but the facts indicate that the cure may be worse than the alleged disease.

Marriage provides a profound “shock absorber” that helps you navigate disappointments, illnesses, and other difficulties.

Studies show that spouses hold one another to greater levels of personal responsibility and self-discipline than friends or other family members can.

Nothing can mature character like marriage.

John Witte, Jr. says that the earlier “ideal of marriage as a permanent contractual union designed for the sake of mutual love, procreation, and protection is slowly giving way to a new reality of marriage as a ‘terminal sexual contract’ designed for the gratification of the individual partites.

In short, the Enlightenment privatized marriage, taking it out of the public sphere, and redefined its purpose as individual gratification, not any “broader good” such as reflecting God’s nature, producing character, or raising children.

Marriage used to be a public institution for the common good, and now it is a private arrangement for the satisfaction of the individuals. Marriage used to be about us, but now it is about me.

In generations past there was far less talk about “compatibility” and finding the ideal soul mate. Today we are looking for somene who accepts us as we are and fulfills our desires, and this creates an unrealistic set of expectations that frustrates both the searchers and the searched for.

Older views of marriage are considered to be traditional and oppressive, while the newer view of the “Me-Marriage” seems so liberating. And yet it is the newer view that has led to a steep decline in marriage and to an oppressive sense of hopelessness with regard to it…The new conception of marriage-as-self-realization has put us in a position of wanting too much out of marriage and yet not nearly enough- at the same time.

A marriage based not on self-denial but on self-fulfillment will require a low- or no-maintenance partner who meets your needs while making almost no claims on you. Simply put- today people are asking far too much in the marriage partner.

But if you avoid marriage simply because you don’t want to lose your freedom, that is one of the worst things you can do to your heart.

You never marry the right person.

No two people are compatible.

Marriage brings you into more intense proximity to another human being than any other relationship can.

Over the years you will go through seasons in which you have to learn to love a person who you didn’t marry, who is something of a stranger.

The journey may eventually take you into a strong, tender, joyful marriage. But it is not because you married the perfectly compatible person. That person doesn’t exist.

Hauerwas gives us the first reason that no two people are compatible for marriage- namely, that marriage profoundly changes us.

Even today’s critics of monogamy must grant that, at least pragmatically, we can’t really live without it.

Evidence continues to mount that marriage- indeed traditional, exclusively monogamous marriage- brings enormous benefits of all kinds to adults, and even more to children and society at large.

If our views of marriage are too romantic and idealistic, we underestimate the influence of sin on human life. If they are too pessimistic and cynical, we misunderstand marriage’s divine origin.

This is the secret- that the Gospel of Jesus and marriage explain one another. That when God invented marriage, he already had the saving work of Jesus in mind.

On the one hand, the experience of marriage will unveil the beauty and depths of the Gospel to you…On the other hand, a greater understanding of the Gospel will help you experience deeper and deeper union with each other as the years go on.

Marriage is a major vehicle for the Gospel’s remaking of your heart from the inside out and your life from the ground up.

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws.

The Gospel can fill our hearts with God’s love so that you can handle it when your spouse fails to love you as he or she should.

“We must name the troubling past truthfully-we must come to clarity about what happened,  how we reacted,  and how we are reacting to it now-to be freed from its destructive hold on our lives.  Granted,  truthful naming will not by itself heal memories or wrong suffered; but without truthful naming,  all measures we might undertake to heal such memories will remain incomplete. ” -quote from Miroslav Volf

A person who has been abused can become adept at hiding the pain behind a mask.

For most churches,  this topic is taboo and not discussed,  but for us it had to be.

A few years into this,  I now think redemption is always an opportunity in front of me,  and my fears and “victim identity” are becoming a part of my past.  (Grace)

Chapter 8-The Porn Path

In the best sense of the word,  God intends for a devoted married couple to be “addicted” to each other,  bound together in every way.

This also explains why God intends sexual pleasure to be experienced solely within marriage.  God is good,  and His commands are good.  When He forbids sex outside marriage,  He is not being prudish,  outdated,  or prohibiting our joy.

Most experts agree there are four basic aspects to virtually all heterosexual pornography,  which constitutes the majority of porn-
1-The message is consistent that all women want sex from all men all the time in all kinds of bizarre ways and are essentially nymphomaniacs.
2-Women really enjoy whatever any man does to them sexually.
3-Any woman who does not meet the stereotype of points one and two can quickly bechanged through a bit of force or intimidation.
4-The woman is dominated and degraded by the man in a way that exploits her as essentially a tool for the pleasure of the man and not really a person but rather parts.

The act of desiring the unclothed body of a person is not a sin.  The issue is which person’s unclothed body you are listing after.

Even mainstream women’s magazines contribute to the objectification and degradation of sex.  Cosmo, as well as an entire industry of other women’s magazines lining the rack of your local grocery store,  fills its covers with pornography article headlines shouting to the world that lust is a good thing.  And their pages are filled with detailed instructions teaching a young woman how to look and act like a Porn star so as to attract a boyfriend,  outperform his previous girlfriends in bed,  and be as hot as his favorite porn fantasies.  The goal is to keep him well satisfied and in the relationship as if he were a God to be worshipped. 

“As pornography has become more acceptable,  both legally and culturally,  the level of brutality toward,  and the degradation of women has intensified.”- National Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women

Don’t kid yourself.  Sin is an onramp to death.

You don’t control porn.  Porn controls you.

Do not be fooled,  porn is not about sex,  it’s all about money.

No porn is free.

We have sought to sand the varnish off porn and sinful lust so as to see it for what it truly is-a horrific evil with no redeeming value.

Do not deny the truth because it is embarrassing.  Do not minimize the truth as if it was no big deal.  Do not normalizes the truth as if it were okay because it is so common.  Do not rationalize the truth with excuses like “it’s not as bad as adultery” or you’ve “got it under control. ” Do not celebrate it as freedom when it is in fact slavery.

While none of us can. Become perfect in this life,  God does promise that Christians can put their sin,  including sexual sin,  to death because Jesus died for it.

Sex is a part of your life,  but it is not your life.

Chapter 5: Taking Out the Trash

The Four Horseman of Marital Death:
Horseman number one is criticism.- A complaint attacks the problem, whereas a criticism attacks the person.

Hoseman number two is contempt.

Horseman number three is defensiveness.

Horseman number four is stonewalling

We can kill our sin, or we can kill our marriage.

On Repentance:
Repentance is not getting caught, but coming clean.
Repentance is not denying our sin.
Repentance is not diminishing our sin.
Repentance is not managing our sin.
Repentance is not blame shifting our sin.
Repentance is not excusing our sin.
Repentance is not about someone else’s sin.
Repentance is not about manipulating God or people for blessing.
Repentance is not worldly sorrow.
Repentance is not solely grieving the consequences of your sin, but is hating the evil of the sin itself.
Repentance is not mere confession.

Repentance includes confession.
Repentance includes contrition. 
Repentance includes Change

No one has been more wounded, grieved, hurt, betrayed, and mistreated than God.

As an act of worship, we must respond to our sinfulspouses as God has responded to our sin-with forgiveness-because it is a gospel issue. We cannot accept forgiveness from God without extending it to our spouses.

If I accept God’s forgiveness of my sins but refuse to forgive my spouse of his or her sins, I am in effect saying by my actions that my spouse’s sin against me is worse than my sin against God.

On Forgiveness:

Forgiveness is not denying, approving, or diminishing sin that is committed against us.
Forgiveness is not naivety.
Forgiveness is not enabling sin.
Forgiveness is not waiting for someone to acknowledge sin, apologize, and repent. The sad truth is that some people will nevver fully repent, and others never at all. Others we will never see again, or they will die before we hear an apology. We forgive. Because it is what God requires and what we need, not because our offenders have apologized.
Forgiveness is not forgetting about sin committed against us.
FOrgiveness is not dying emotionally and no longer feeling the pain of the transgression.
Forgiveness is not a one time event. Those who have been sinned against commonly have seasons when they feel afresh the pain of past hurts and have to forgive their transgressors yet again.
Forgiveness is not reconciliation. It takes one sinner to repent, and one victim to forgive, but it takes both to reconcile…Forgiveness is the beginning of potential reconciliation but is not in and of itself reconsiliation…The trust that reconsciliation requires is gained slowly and lost quickly.
Forgiveness is not neglecting Justice. If a crime has been committed, we can simultaneously forgive someone and call the police to arrest him or her.

Bitterness is often unrelated to the magnitude of a sin, but instead correlates to how much you love the offender. If a stranger sins against you in a significant way, you are likely to be angry, but. Not bitter. If a spouse sins against you -even in a little way- however, you are likely to get bitter because you have higher expectations for your spouse’s relationship with you.

The truth is, righteous anger is the right response to sin and far more consistent with God’s character than faking happiness, approval, or acceptance.

There are no loving marriages apart from repentance and forgiveness. Marriage either gets bitter or gets better.

A good fight:
First, you have to decide if your spouse has committed a sin.
Second, decide how you want to deal with the conoflict.
Third, do not fight when either of you has any substance in you, such as alcohol, that alter your emotional state.
Fourth, before you fight, stop and pray, asking God to be in the midst of your fight, controlling your tongue, and \helping you to fight for the marriage by attacking the problem, not the person.
Fifth, do not use fighting with your spouse as your release valve or lightning rod.
Sixth, sometimes a couple simply cannot come to an agreement on an important issue, and it affects their oneness and unity, possibly including their sexuality.

Chapter 6:  Sex: God, Gross, or Gift?

God created us male and female in His image and likeness with dignity, equality, value, and worth.

Love is more like a song than a math equation.

LMarriage is for one man and one woman by God’s design.

God created sex.

Sex outside of marriage is a sin.

Sex is to be done in such a way that there is no shame.

Your standard of beauty is your spouse.

Please take this as a loving warning. If you, or your spouse, tend to view sex as god, you are in grave danger.

The fool’s parade hijacked the march to manhood.  Rather than moving from boyhood to manhood by this succession of sociological transitions,  we’ve created a third stage in the middle called adolescence or what I call “Boys who can shave. ”

We are left with indefinite adolescence and a Peter Pan Syndrome epidemic where some men want to remain boys forever.

A lot of guys fight the transition from boy to man because they despise responsibility.

Enabling this type of guy are a legion of moms and girlfriends who pay his bills,  pick up his mess,  lend him their cars,  and keep him supplied with alcohol and a steady diet of snacks.

You are defined by the legacy,  the life,  and the fruit that come out of you,  not by what you take in.

… Some things that are not sinful are still just dumb.  If you got fired because you were trying to get to the next level and become a guild leader,  that’s dumb.  If you work only one part-time job so you can have more time to play guitar or Frisbee golf,  that’s dumb.  If you spend all your money on a new car or truck,  or toys,  or gear,  or gambling,  or clothes,  or fantasy football,  that’s some.  There are a lot of things that Christian guys do that aren’t evil,  they’re just dumb and childish and foolish. 

As men,  we are to be tough in defending the weak,  oppressed,  abused,  and poor,  fighting for justice and mercy.

We are to be tough in defending truth and combating false teaching and error.  We are to be tough with stiff-necked,  hard-hearted men who bully others around.  We are to be tough in carving out safety and protection for women and children in a world that abuses them.

Jesus was tough with religious blockheads,  false teachers,  the proud,  and bullies.  Jesus was tender with women,  children,  and those who were suffering or humble.

Wise men… load themselves up early in life to get their education,  careers,  families,  and ministries started as soon as possible because it gives them a good head start on the fools. 

When you consider how many men are really just boys who can shave,  think about. How terrifying it must be for a woman to marry.

When a woman marries a man,  she’s trusting that for the rest of her life he won’t hit her,  cheat on her,  rape her,  or kill her; that he’ll work hard,  pay the bills,  love their children,  finish the race well,  and walk with Jesus til the end; that if she gets sick,  he’ll look after her; that if she is dying.,  he will be faithful to her. 

In sports,  men are taught to find a weakness in their opponents and exploit it.  But since a husband is one with his wife-who is not his opponent-her weakness is his weakness,  which means he needs to honor and protect it rather than exploit it.

Some men say,  “I would never hit a woman. ” How about with your tongue?  (Both in speaking to your wife and about her.)

The man’s curse was providing for his family.  This means that a man will always find it very difficult not to idolize or demonize his work and to do it unto the Lord as an act of worship,  which God has chosen to mature and grow him as a man.  And what the weakest,  most worthless men among us do is say,  “Oh,  my load is heavy.  I know yours is heavy,  but need you to carry all of mine too. ” Men,  you have to work harder and smarter than the other men if you want to feed your family.  That’s your responsibility as a man.  If you want other men to respect you,  if you want your wife to respectful,  if you want your children to respect you; you pay the bills. 

We life in a time where there are guys telling their wives that they don’t want to have children because that would mean they would need to step up to provide for their families and stop acting like children themselves.

The latest statistics reveal that 40 percent of all children are born out of wedlock.  It is now at the point where. Women aren’t even pretending they will ever get married.  They go to college,  get a good job,  get pregnant,  and have a child alone.  They’ve lost any hope of ever finding a guy who can actually carry the load,  and that’s tragic.

A single woman should only marry a man she respects and trusts enough to follow. 

A husband who is a good head will not abuse,  abdicate,  abandon,  or avoid responsibility.

Being the responsible head does not mean that a man does everything in the family,  but rather. That everything gets done. 

Don’t sulk,  don’t sin,  and don’t settle,  but instead strive.

In idolizing marriage,  I ended up demonizing Grace and doubting God.

Chapter 2
It is easier for a woman to think of doing life with a friend than with a dictator or unemotional ruler.

Marriage includes a spouse,  and often children.  But the goal,  center,  and purpose of marriage is not self,  spouse,  or children.  The ultimate goal of marriage and family is the glory of God.

Our enemy hates fruitfulness that can come from a husband and wife serving God together.

Even the wisest among us has moments of folly.  So God gives us spouses to serve as wise friends by praying with and for us,  attending church with us,  speaking truth,  and providing Scripture along with good books and online classes,  lectures,  and sermons to nourish fruitfulness in our lives.

In using the language of “falling” (in love) they are cleverly avoiding any responsibility,  as if they were simply required to follow their hearts.

Christian marriage is reciprocal acts of covenant love.

Often life is not much fun.  Between the sins we commit and the sins committed against us-not to mention Satan,  demons,  and the curse-Jeremmiah’s lament,  “Why did I come forth from the womb to see labor and sorrow, ” makes sense.

Any couple who hope to exit this life together still holding hands must be friends who have fun along the way and laugh a lot. 

If your spouse is an enjoyable friend,  suddenly a cup of coffee together,  a walk after dinner,  and trip to the grocery store become sacred rituals. Filled with meaningful opportunities to have some fun with the friend you are married to.

Before there were date nights or divorce lawyers,  there was God.

Perhaps this was because she belongs at his side as an intimate equal and not in front of him as feminism would teach or behind him as chauvinism would teach.
 
Most of our dating time is spent pretending to be people we are not,  and after a few years of marriage,  our spouses start to discover who we truly are rather than the characters we have been acting like.

True friends are revealed when someone has failed and fallen into sin.  Those who rush to help them up-knowing full well whom they are helping and what they have done-are true friends.

God has a plan to turn despair into blessings. He’s so merciful, creative, and sovereign that he uses everything, mo matter what it is, for your ultimate good.

If He can turn murder into salvation, you can be confident that he can transform and use things in your life.

Your future is not open to the winds of random change. All those in Christ had their futures absolutely determined before the world even existed.

Sin, Violence, and Sexual Assault

Evil and sin work to infuse disgrace and violate peace. Sexual assault is a powerful means of achieving such destructive effects.

As the pinnacle of God’s creation, human beings reveal God more wonderfully than any other creature-as they were created to be like God, by God, for God and to be with God.

Evil is an intrusion upon shalom.

Immediately after the fall, there is a radical shift from shalom to violence, as the first murder takes place in Genesis 4.

 

Just wanted to drop a real quick note as I watch abc’s new series The River follows a family looking for their missing father in the forests surrounding the Amazon 6 months after his disappearance. I’ve only seen the first two episodes (currently three about to be four), but I wanted to say a few things I’ve noticed about the characters in the show. 

None of them are religious, yet they are constantly encountering very spiritual situations. They continue to dive into the spiritual beliefs of the Amazonians. While this a very fascinating cultural lesson, it is also an interesting at how nonbelievers handle demons. I Corinthians 10:20 clearly indicates that any sacrifice made to an idol is demon worship. This has been encountered in The River, but in incredible fear and a desire to appease these demons. 

That is not the life of the Christian. 

I started thinking what the show would be like if a Christian actually called upon the name of Jesus to crush the demons, and beg His presence. 

I’ll tell you what would happen.

abc wouldn’t have a show.

Be careful when you mess with demons. It could get really real really fast. 

And with that, here’s a video by My Heart To Fear called “The Witching Hour”- written by the lead singer who invited demons into his home to prove God exists (“If demons exist, God does too”)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pRUxpHLrrQ

Chapter 8: Anger
Because we are sinners, we frequently distort and confuse godly angry with our own desire for vengeance or control.

Hated its characterized by a general and long standing negative evaluation of a person, while anger is usually felt against a specific offense.

God’s vengeance makes the spiral of vengeance grind to a halt because the assurance that God will punish sin allows believers to freely love.

Christianity its not about Karma; its about grace.

Jesus received God’s anger and punishment so those guilty of cosmic treason would be forgiven.

The Gospel forgives and changes anti people into loving and forgiving people who are characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control.

Crying out to God because of sins done to you will remind you that you are also guilty, but have received forgiveness.

So in the case of an unrepentant sinner unwilling to accept the blame in the first place, the blame and condemnation remains on that person. Forgiveness has been concretely given, but rejected. Because forgiveness has a necessary starting point, the condemnation of some evil, that condemnation remains upon the unrepentant sinner, even while the walks away having granted forgiveness.

If forgiveness is conditional on the perpetrator’s repentance, it once again places the victim’s under the control of their perpetrator, and books them Rio the destruction that bitterness and hatred bring.

Denying a victim the sense of freedom that only comes after biblical forgiveness has taken place perpetuates the suffering caused by the initial assault because it allows the poison of hatred to continue to fester.

Forgiveness is not a substitute for justice.

Forgiveness does not mean that you do not participate in activities that impose consequences of evil behavior such as calling the police, filling a report, church discipline, criminal proceedings, etc.

You can forgive your abuser without the expectation of pretending the assault  never happened.

Forgiveness its a precursor to reconciliation.

“Overlooking harm in order to achieve a sentimental but nonsubstantive peace actually encourages sin.”-Dan B. Allender

God’s interest in the abuse of power its not mild. Nor its he resigned to injustice in a fallen world.

God’s wrath is a source of positive hope for the victim. You know God loves you and will destroy there evil that has harmed you. God is the refuge of his people and shows steadfast love by destroying those who “strike terror.”

Learned so much about forgiveness… I’m just so humbled and encouraged that God has a powerful answer foot injustice and abuse.