Uncle Tom
It really is amazing how liberating it can be. Perhaps, it is actually even quite surprising. I guess I never really considered it this way until now, but there comes a time in everyone’s life when we need to own up to something: I am not a victim. I am not a victim of someone else’s thoughts, their actions, their words, or even of circumstances.
A victim is powerless: they are held captive by someone else’s actions and they cannot choose who they become. A victim bows to the circumstance and allows the situation to determine their actions and thoughts. A victim is reactionary, and not pro-active. A victim looks for someone else to blame and tries to avoid the truth: that perhaps I am in this place because of my own actions and I just need to man up and take responsibility.
The word victim suggests that it is more like a casualty. Like a natural disaster or predatorial action. In moments like that, you don’t have time to choose who you become-you just go with gut instinct for survival. However, in most of my life, I have to learn to roll with the punches and not let my circumstances determine who I become. “People are talking about me”. “I feel left out”. “I feel misunderstood”. “I have the urge to want to justify myself”. These are just perceptions - they are not necessarily the truth. The more I play into it, the more credit I give the situation and the more I allow it to determine who I am am rather than giving that power to the only person on earth who can really determine that: me. And me is not a victim!
There is a little obscure verse in Isaiah 32:17 that says, “the fruit of rightness will be peace, and its effects will be confidence forever.”This is true in life at every angle: why would we try to justify ourselves about anything if we feel the confidence that we made the right choice? What good does panicking at trying to win people’s approval do if we have the nagging feeling that we need to somehow justify something? There is so much to be said in admitting when we are wrong and realizing that we are ok with owning up to it.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a book that played a huge role in the end of slavery in the US in the mid-1860’s. It is a story about an amazing slave that everyone affectionately called “Uncle Tom”. However, slavery to him was not what defined him: his faith and his dignity was what defined him. As a slave, he refused to consider himself a victim of injustice and cruelty, and instead decided to choose who he would be every day. This is what I am choosing to do today. And this is what I will choose to do tomorrow. I will not allow anyone or anything else the privilege of detemining who I will become…that choice is mine alone.