In the eyes of the meek...
Being meek isn't as easy as people would think. Indeed, I have accepted things that other people wouldn't... For instance, I enjoy being submissive. It is a choice I live with every day because it affects me every day. I prefer to be told what to do by most people, but ONLY those whom I trust and think I ought to give such respect. However, and this is a big one, sometimes I let it go too far. I mean, as much as I like being submissive to others, there are times when I am crying out to be heard and nobody can hear me at all. Also, there seems to be a fine line between being submissive and being a doormat. I have had the unfortunate experience of being the doormat sometimes.
People sometimes ask me why I put myself through such things, and I don't ever have an honest answer I can give them, so I simply shrug. But tonight I was kind of forced to think about it because I was asked to write this blog for my friend. She wanted some "essays" on humility. So in thinking about this humility thing, I suppose the best possible answer I can give is that I am used to it... I've been pretty much talked over, ignored, pointed at, etc, since I was little. Being called "ugly" was a daily experience in my world by the kids at school.
There was a time where I was angry at myself and everyone else around me. You know, those turbulent teenage years when you're between childhood and adulthood? But then, who wouldn't be? I had stopped caring about myself because I was a victim of rape and molestation. I know what it is like to be violated so bad that being a teenager was something I wished wouldn't happen. I stopped caring so much, that people found me an easy target and teased me mercilessly, and I thought at the time that I was helpless.
Humility and humiliation are two words that are often confused. I was not humble back then, I was humiliated. Humiliation forces you into some actions that are similar to humility. Make no mistake, they are completely different. You do not force humility unto another, they are either humble or they aren't.
But you know what? Writing this is not humiliating. It is humbling. I will explain....
The whole time I was being humiliated, and this was a nearly twenty year stretch out of my nearly twenty eight years of life, I gave up on the one thing that I should have humbled myself to the most... And that was God. I said, "Why should I care about a God who is not there?" But he was. Through it all, I suppose there were always these signs that I saw and chose to ignore. He tested me.
I would never change the past. There are no "What if" moments for me. Everything, including the rapes, happened for a reason. I would not have been shaped into the strong woman that I am today. While I still submit myself in my daily life, I mostly submit to God. He has been good to me for throwing the challenges at me that make my life interesting.
Just recently, I was baptized. As I stood at the altar with my evangelist, he was crying. He was humbled to know that someone who went through as much as I had (though he doesn't know all of it), could find it in me to give myself back to Jesus. I said to him, "When you walk through life in darkness, you crave seeing the light." And it is totally true.
I started to go to church because I wanted to submit to Jesus, not just people. I want Him to be my boss, my guide. And I go to church because it makes me happy after years of being let down by humiliation.
The point is that I am humble for Jesus, and in life, because of the things that have shaped me over the years. I will have more to say about it later when I have thought, so this blog is to be continued.
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