Someone like you

Perhaps there is someone like you within sight, maybe as close as a touch away.

You are a determined and enduring advocate for others but struggle to have your own back. You are a light fueled by God and for God, ignited by faith, and fanned by grace. Your core is pure, deep, and powerful despite the tattered, sinful basin that homes your spirit. You are not the creator of your existence; God is, and His designs are durable, detailed, and deliberate. You trust in God above all, especially yourself.

Due to the fall of man, you recognize fairness is a distorted pursuit. Accepting what is real versus fair can leave you weary, empty, and frustrated. You ache to see responsibility, remorse, and redemption in this world, knowing these are longings out of your control. You have been known to struggle against yourself, wanting God to show up and show off, to exert His control in an out-of-control world.

You yearn for God to reveal Himself; truly yearn as a child begging to understand their Father’s strength and love in circumstances you cannot comprehend. You beg God to show Himself, not to allow a lie to remain alive, not to normalize the minimizing of truth and trauma, and for Him to bring justice to the hurting. In your impatience, you have a compulsion to pursue retribution, but check yourself in scripture:

“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:19, 21).

Leaving room for God requires practice, patience, and humility. It takes accepting what is real and yielding to God that which seems too unreal to accept: injustices against your moral code. You know life is unfair and will continue to be unfair. Corruption exists. Evil exists. Many assailants and manipulators reap blessings rather than consequences for their actions. Vile people have benefited from their proximity, position, and personality, abusing their power for profit and pleasure. You can attest that these people are limited in empathy and remorse; they often blame others rather than admit culpability. What can feel worse is when justice fails, leaving little room to right wrongs. And yet, even a little room is enough for God.

God knows the truth. God’s delivery of justice is on His timeframe and may look different than you can imagine or desire. As such, you leave room for God’s hand, even as your feelings wrestle with your faith. Eventually, you take off the energy you have used being hurt, dismayed, and angry and put it towards improving the quality of your peace, the passion for your purpose, and the position of your boundaries. Despite what you can see, God moves in areas you know nothing about, and His moves command Heaven and Earth to obey.

God holds you so tightly behind the veil of what you can comprehend that the talons of foes and failures cannot establish their grip. In His grasp, you unfurl. You discover ways to be at peace and promote peace in a world in pieces.

Perhaps there are others out there: someone like you. If you recognize these wounded yet faithful warriors, please encourage them. Stand on the battlefield beside them, knowing they need someone to have their back just as much as you do.

— Tiffany Kaye Chartier