Are you a victim, or a victor?

Several years ago I shared my testimony at a luncheon for Christian women in business. At the time, I had just moved from California to Texas, and felt unusually emotional in front of the audience. In those days, I nearly always shed a few tears when telling my story. That day I was a raw girl with raw emotions.

Little did I know that behind those tears was anger, and beneath my hard-core honesty were roots of bitterness. 

A few weeks later, the hostess, Deborah, invited me to lunch.

Over a salad in a corner booth, she told me many women were impacted by my story. Then she slipped a fifty dollar bill across the table to let me know she believed in my ministry. 

“Thank you,” I said, surprised.

Then she asked if she could offer me a correction.

“Absolutely,” I replied, inching forward in my seat.

“The daughter of the King is not a victim, Jen. She is a victor.”

As much as I loved Jesus, I was still giving more weight to the ways I’d been hurt, let down and disappointed than to the ways I’d been helped, healed and delivered. Why did I still shed tears? Was I still living as a captive of man’s sins against me and carrying around all my anger in a vault, heavy-laden and heavy-hearted, reflecting the past instead of the future?

“You are angry,” she told me, and I cried again.

I was angry!

It took years for me to sort through my past, to reconcile it, and to release it so that it didn’t hurt anymore. And in that process, I learned the beauty and power of forgiveness. The journey created a new pattern of understanding how to look at sin, name it, claim it, and let it go — be it mine or someone else’s.

Over a few long nights with my beloved husband, we burned piles of old pictures that represented my victimization, and carefully preserved the ones that represented the part of my life that I could be proud of.

It takes time to sort — but the sorting is essential. “Test everything,” the Word says, “and hold onto the good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

As you work through forgiveness, make sure to list the good others have brought to your life. Separate the bad from the good – and let go of the bad. Hold onto the good! Because in every difficult circumstance, there are the hidden treasures of blessing.

When you lay your burdens at the throne of Christ, He will turn them to dust. Take your crumbled dreams and unmet expectations and disappointments and defeats — and hand them over. In exchange, he will give you a crown of beauty — the honor and authority worn by the children of God who do not live captive to others’ behavior — but reign with Christ.

The journey from “wearing my ashes” to “wearing my crown” required the work of forgiveness. Alone with God, I had to face the impact of other’s sins on my life. I had to own my own sins, and burn it all beneath the star-speckled sky of my Savior.

If you need help with this process, I’ve created the Three-Day Forgiveness Worksheet to help you. It’s a way I can hold people’s hands to help them sort through their bitterness and release it to the One who turns our sins to dust. You can grab it here.

In the middle of this process you may feel like you are choking on the ashes — like they are such a bitter gall you can’t swallow.  Ask yourself, which weighs more, the crown or the ashes? The ashes are the debts owed us, the past, the trouble. The crown is our future: the cancelled debt, the grace, the authority and inheritance of being God’s chosen son or daughter.

Look at your ashes. Take the time. But don’t look too long! The more you look at something, the more you will reflect it. When you are done looking, make the conscious choice to look UP at the one who transforms the dust into your destiny.

Lay hold of your crown. It carries the weight of authority and purpose that no bucket of ashes could ever outweigh.

If you need help with forgiveness or are in the process of working through it, please leave a comment on the blog here and grab that free worksheet (corrected and updated)!

I am for you!