This used to seem so concrete to me, winning or losing. Especially when I was going through the court system in coming out from domestic violence. You go in front of the judge and either you win or you lose. It turned into either I win or he does. It wasn't until much later, years later that this view changed.
I was doing my mentored practice in a small church and town in Maine. During this I sat on a board that dealt with domestic violence from all angles. It included people from the courts, officers, advocates, batterers class facilitators, and people who would teach the youth. During this my son testified for his dad in a protection from abuse case (this is a restraining order) that the current wife was trying to get. I started to feel as though I had lost again. One of the advocates in the group that I shared this with came to me and said, "Annette, you have come to far to let this all suck you in again to all the old ways of being." It was like being hit with cold water. There are no winners or losers we all in some ways lose in the face of violence, nobody wins.
This sad realization leveled everything for me though that day. Because we have to rest more in the arms of God's love where there is no violence. I have to pray and give my son to God, I have to let go of the picture of winning or losing and let him find his own way and his own path. Paul has written about this for weeks now in Timothy as we have been reading it on Sundays. Even though he is in chains, supposedly lost his fight, still the gospel is not lost, nor is his faith, or his belief. After all the way Paul ends this in saying, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." (2 Timothy 4:7). Isn't this what is most important, keeping the faith?
I was doing my mentored practice in a small church and town in Maine. During this I sat on a board that dealt with domestic violence from all angles. It included people from the courts, officers, advocates, batterers class facilitators, and people who would teach the youth. During this my son testified for his dad in a protection from abuse case (this is a restraining order) that the current wife was trying to get. I started to feel as though I had lost again. One of the advocates in the group that I shared this with came to me and said, "Annette, you have come to far to let this all suck you in again to all the old ways of being." It was like being hit with cold water. There are no winners or losers we all in some ways lose in the face of violence, nobody wins.
This sad realization leveled everything for me though that day. Because we have to rest more in the arms of God's love where there is no violence. I have to pray and give my son to God, I have to let go of the picture of winning or losing and let him find his own way and his own path. Paul has written about this for weeks now in Timothy as we have been reading it on Sundays. Even though he is in chains, supposedly lost his fight, still the gospel is not lost, nor is his faith, or his belief. After all the way Paul ends this in saying, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." (2 Timothy 4:7). Isn't this what is most important, keeping the faith?
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