my fears are drowned in perfect love ❤

Yeah. Okay.

So chill that the Roman government itself killed Him. Literally executed Him. He pissed them off so badly that they executed Him with a torturous method they perfected to be excruciating and horrible. All for being such a chill guy. :)

I was telling my story to somebody the other day and I got to the various injustices of racism I’ve endured, and he told me, “That doesn’t happen. Not anymore.” I insisted it did, and he counter-insisted, “That’s just something everybody goes through, you’re just injecting race into it.”

I tried to tell him about the times someone had physically assaulted me while yelling “ch_nk” or “go_k” or “yellow kid” or “your dad killed my dad in the war,” but he kept telling me, “That’s not that bad.” So I excused myself from the conversation. I felt a bit humiliated, honestly. This was a guy I really trusted, who I was sure would understand. He was absolutely adamant he was right.

I’ve seen this sort of thing with mental health, sexual abuse, family upbringing, classism, gender, religion—you try to tell your story, and a wall comes up. You get the reply, “It’s never happened to me, therefore it never happens.” And you start to wonder: Am I the crazy one? Is it just in my head? Am I overreacting and too sensitive, like they’re saying?

But then I’ve found those who heard me. Who listened. Who weren’t just treating me like a sad pity project or asking out of voyeuristic curiosity. I’ve found safe people who may not have gone through the same thing, but they can literally become the other. They pause to believe. I’ve also found those who have walked in the same shoes and skin. Sometimes they thought they were walking alone, against insurmountable forces with no community and zero support—until they heard someone say a similar story and they knew they weren’t crazy. That gives me enough courage to keep speaking, to keep sharing. It’s in the telling of our stories we find healing, and each other. You may be lonely for a while, but you are not alone.

(Romans 13:14)

God told the children of Israel that He was with them those 40 years in the wilderness to humble them and to test them, to know what was in their hearts to see if they would keep His commandments. (Deuteronomy 8:2) The children of Israel, because of rebellion, was unable to adopt the character God wanted them to, even after SO many years of wandering around in the wilderness. Often times that how it is with us. Our wilderness experiences are meant to teach us things - important things, but we have to make a conscious decision to walk in those changes. We have to wake up determined to put on the ways of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have to realize that God expects us to walk in what our storms taught us. If your storm was meant to teach you patience, then you need to walk in patience. If your storm was meant to teach you self control, then you must walk in self control. If your storm was meant to teach you to have a better attitude, then God expects you to have a attitude change. It’s only when God sees us walking in the changes that He wants will He then bring those changes that we want.