Lets talk Betrayal...

So let talk betrayal for a bit...Heavy topic. Something most of us know a bit about. At some point we will all be betrayed by either parents, siblings, spouses, kids, friends and yes even our jobs. I'm not talking about someone disappointing you or even being fooled by someone here...I'm talking about outright lies, determined deception, and unjust wrong all wrapped into one. I think most of us know every single time in our lives betrayal has hit us...You never really forget that moment when you loose your air and can't find any oxygen available to breath in. That moment when the reality of your situation hits you squarely in the face...remember the nights after when you wake up from sleeping hoping your life was a momentary nightmare and waking up would return it all back to normal? Boy, I don't think I will ever forget those moments or the aftermath...

This past week in taking care of patients somehow this subject came up over and over again. Men who had been abandoned by wives now fending for small children on their own, people fired after 25 years of service with no severance package, men having affairs on their wives (yes they come to me with STD's admitting their infidelity)...I met one man who lost his best friend and wife both to each other...and his best friend told him...I'll take good care of your kids...Man, I think even the most callous of us would wonder how someone could be that cruel...He but all broke down in my office after getting a flu shot telling me of this fresh betrayal...he was still in shock in my estimation...I couldn't help but wonder what road he would take in his journey of dealing with betrayal...This theme was so frequent last week in my patients lives I knew God was trying to tell me something...I had to really stop and formulate some thoughts on it all....

I'm a Christian who believes in living a life well, and out loud for that matter, but what does that mean during times of betrayal, to me?...How to we rise above that storm because it is a tough one to even rise in?... I have decided in writing to birth to a perspective that I will admit is uniquely mine. I'm just going to say something here very poignant here, don't miss it....Not everyone wants to rise above betrayal, some sit right where it takes them and they never move....In a sense they becoming prisoners of their past life, it is an excuse for them to stay out of relationships, to avoid loving deeply, to become selfish, to avoid growth, to avoid venerability. As Christians many of them say, "I have forgiven but I can't forget and I will NEVER..." I wonder if people realize getting stuck there affects them on EVERY level...

Betrayal requires us to go beyond forgiveness..you have to allow yourself to become venerable again where there is no guarantee of the outcome...you have to learn to love your kids growing up and out, who are going to leave you. You have to learn to work hard at your job just because your going to be a good employee. In those secret moments where no one else is looking you clean your office, you organize, you don't sit on the Internet on company time...you work...you become faithful, no one is looking but your being faithful because that is who you are...You have to allow yourself to be open to receiving love and giving love with absolutely no guarantee that you will get anything in return, in fact, you have to do that knowing that more times than not your needs are not going to be met. You have to learn to trust in other peoples goodness, heart and direction. And in it all amidst the sting we feel in our hearts at times we have to continue to hope...Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Betrayal can rob us of any hope of the future for ourselves...if we let it, but we have options...We have options to not let Satan kill, steal and destroy from us. We may have broken relationships in the past, we may at even one time had a heart so dark that we never knew if we would feel warmth or light again, but....if you trust who and what God is able to do, and if you KNOW he purposes a good thing for you, you who He knew would be His child...what can you do but look up and hope expectantly for something better than what you ever had before...God comes to give us LIFE and give it abundantly...

More and more I see life and living as a matter of choice and outlook...if you believe your best is behind, that you will never feel as good as you have in the past, that you will never love as deeply, that you will never be as successful, then from what I see you will have exactly as you believe... You may as well retire, pack it up, and live alone...write you memoir...You have to realize that your life will not from that point will not carry the witness God designed for you, you have to realize that the safety in the confines you have created means you will more than likely be ineffectual in the lives of others. You have to realize you have chosen not to trust God, not to enter into His rest, nor therefore your promised land that awaits, it honestly is a decision most people make, your in a huge company. Finally, you have to admit that you have let Satan win and get his way, that he has stolen, killed and destroyed and your life is that example.

It is fabulous to be saved...I will never ever negate any of the work of Christ in our lives but life abundance does not stop at salvation...it begins there...

You may think I'm talking about something I know nothing about...you would be wrong. DEEP betrayals began very early in my life...in fact I endured one a couple of years ago that shattered me in all honesty, I was completely blindsided by it. The magnitude of how it affected me was palpable for some time...I will just tell you though I am determined to find what God has for me...I know it is a GOOD thing, I am determined to love deeply, I am determined to see myself lovable allowing someone else in to love me deeply, I am determined to continue to be a good friend, to be a good parent, to be faithful at my job. I'm determined to NOT give up any ground but to go and conquer even more, I am determined to have it in me to say to my deceivers, just as Joseph said to his brothers in the Word..."...Do not be distressed and disheartened or vexed and angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me..." Gen 45:5 To me, that perspective IS the very attitude that allowed Joseph the position he held. If he had never believed in the redemption of God, in the goodness of God, in God going before him making him the head not the tail, he would have never found that to be truth...

I hope this blog encourages people who read it to be determined to believe in the goodness of God...I hope this encourages a hope that can not be deterred from the knowledge that "GOD SENT YOU"...In Him, Lori