Judging the Victim

 JUDGING THE VICTIM

Suffering.

Christ bore it all, endured all! Compared to Christ what we have to deal with is so small.  So, we’ve been insulted, our pride was hurt, we’ve been falsely judged; but God knows the truth.  Too often we choose to wallow in self-pity  when it would be so much more beneficial to the soul to endure the hurt and join it to Christ’s pain on the cross, even offer it for the soul of the accuser. It doesn’t take away anything but it does give the suffering some value. Love forgives all things. All things. If we want to be one with Christ, we must first forgive. Clutching the hurt does not diminish the pain but rather increases and prolongs the suffering with no benefit to anyone. It’s not only good mental health but good spiritual health to let it go. Give it to God and let Him deal with it. 

Yeh, yeh, we can say those words and give it all to God but we still hurt and grasp it tightly. We lay awake thinking about it, then dream about it and run it over and over in our minds  like a continuous film loop. It just sticks to us like gum! We pray to be released, to let God take care of it and heal our hearts but still it drags on.

When I’ve been in this frame of mind, I first try to examine my own behavior and words. The blame game is easy and may temporarily vent our emotions, but I still need to take a hard look at how much blame is my own. I ask myself what triggered the response that escalated the messy mess? Was it my words, my tone, my face? ( I have a nice face but it isn’t under much control. I’d be no good at Poker.) If I come up with zilch then what’s next?

During a recent painful and emotional conversation, I became aware that the other person lacked enough information to continue the dialogue and therefore couldn’t grasp the situation accurately. Sometimes conflict can arise because of a lack of accurate facts or perhaps misinformation. I ended the painful discussion and days later proceeded to research salient points that would facilitate an understanding of the situation in question and passed that on.

People with hidden disabilities are often misunderstood. I know a number of people with hidden disabilities. Some are only becoming more widely known. as a result of the increase in cases following a COVID illness. A case in point is Dysautonomia or P.O.T.S. People who suffer from this disease are often judged as lazy, or unmotivated or careless. If others only knew how much this diagnosis totally derails your life, your career and your relationships!  When you don’t look sick or act sick or carry a cane people can be so cruel and misjudge the decisions you choose to make out of necessity.

Having to choose a course of medication or treatment that my have long term negative effects

and create other medical issues in the future is a risk, a gamble, a long shot. Should I let the original diagnosis  rapidly escalate decreasing my quality of life or take a chance that the treatment plan may not lead to a new problems in the future?

Why does one woman choose to sacrifice her life to save her child while another chooses to save hr own life rather than the child’s? We should hope to never have to face such a dilemma. There are those who refuse a life saving kidney transplant that could improve their quality of life and there are those who choose to have the transplant.

All I can say is that family and friends should be more careful with their snap judgements regarding someone else’s choices without being fully informed. Most of us know only a little about a lot of things but we don’t know it all unless we’re a Know It All. 

As a follower of Christ it is not my place to pass judgement on another’s choices. Did Jesus condemn the woman caught in adultery or the thief on the cross? Did He condemn St. Matthew for working for the Romans, collecting taxes and skimming a bit for himself? There are always extenuating circumstances about which we may know little or nothing.

The fact is, most people are just doing the best they can as they muddle through life’s  crises. What they need most is not advice but the support of family and friends. People need us to walk with them, offer comfort or help when asked. Free advice is not always welcome. But most of all people need us to trust their judgement, their wisdom and their own spiritual discernment. There are some souls who accept suffering as a gift from God for their own purification but also as an offering to save souls. Their choice is no concern of mine unless it is illegal or immoral. Christ tells us to love one another and sometimes that love is very difficult to deliver, if it requires keeping my comments to myself.

Let us not judge the victims of hardship.