The Victim

I don't always have choice in what happens to me, but I always have choice in what I do about it.

I have heard this over and over and over again these past 7 months and until today, it sounded very nice but I didn't know how it applied to me. What does that mean? What am I supposed to do?

It means that choices have been made that had an impact on my life, a very deep impact. And although I didn't get a choice in that impact, I get a choice in how I respond to it. Let me be very transparent; for a very long time... long before my marriage, a time I can't pinpoint, I have been a victim. Bad, sad, terrible things have happened and instead of standing up and making a choice on how I was going to handle it, I didn't. I let other people's feelings and motives influence my reaction. I didn't get a choice because I didn't make a choice. I have been sitting around letting the bad choices that have enveloped bits and pieces of my life form the person that I am today. I pushed aside my self, who I am, in order to avoid conflict and other's suffering. I have been swallowed whole by fear. Fear that I would be rejected for seeing things differently than others. That I might not be accepted by my family, my friends and my God. I am done playing the victim. I have played that card too long. I played it in order to avoid making choices, because you see, when you make choices you have to take responsibility for those choices and when bad things happen to you, you aren't responsible for them.

I can see that now. I can see that my choices have always been fear driven and because of that, I haven't been free to be.

7 months later, or perhaps 29 years later, I have finally learned that it's ok that others don't agree with everything I do in my life, because I'm the only one who gets a choice in what I do with it and I'm responsible for it.

I choose to see the good in others. I choose that when they wrong me, I will continually choose to see the best in them. I choose to make choices that are based on my needs, my wants, my feelings. I choose to accept the hurt it causes others. I choose to fall into God's grace and I choose to enjoy it.