We all have people in our lives that have had an impact on us in varying degrees.  People that have shaped us, taught us, impacted our very cores.  There are those we look up to in reverent silence, in awe of who they are, the life they live, the God they serve.

We all have those people in our lives.

Sometimes, however, our core gets shaken when we realize that sometimes those people aren't exactly who you thought they were.  Who they claimed to be.

We all have secrets and demons.  There is not one among us who is perfect, who doesn't have some huge little secret they hide from the world.  Some of our secrets are bigger than others, but we cannot deny they are there. If we were perfect, there wouldn't have been any need for Christ to have come.  I am the first to say that we are all flawed and forgiven, and in turn need to be quick to forgive.

Several weeks ago I attended a lectureship, and my life was changed.  One of the teachers said that we can't forgive based on how worthy the person is of forgiveness, but on the fact that we were fogiven, evil as we are.

Well, lets just stomp all over Courtney's toes, now, shall we?

Sigh.

I have had a very hard few years, as most of you know.  But of course, he was right: it was time to forgive.  Now that I think about it, it's funny how it worked out.  God does things in amazing ways.  As we arrived at my mother's house after Sunday worship that weekend, my brother walked up.  Slowly over the last six months things have gotten better between us, but there was still that tenseness.  That not quite willing to forgive feeling on my side.  I've thought I'd forgiven, and maybe to a degree I had.  But not fully.  My mind was blinded by the past.  But he walked up, and I sat there in the car, trying to decide what to do.  Then I heard his words.  He had been baptized that morning at his church.

Insert kick to the teeth.

I'll save you the rest of my rambling and just say that forgiveness was in order that day, and somehow I managed to give it.

And then I learned a lesson, a very tough one to learn.  Just because you forgive someone, doesn't mean that the past is going to leave you alone.  It doesn't mean that those things you've forgiven aren't going to haunt you again, and perhaps soon.

Oh, was that lesson a hard one to learn.  I received information that a person that I respect very much, that I've looked up to, was accused of molestation, and has pretty much admitted to it.  The details are eerily similar to the details of my past, and my heart sank, and I'm unsure of how to deal.  My dreams swam with visions of my childhood, my brain can't focus and I'm unsure of how to step forward.  Somehow, it feels instead, like three steps back.

There isn't much more I can say here.  I started this post because I didn't want to.  I wanted to stop thinking of it all, pretend none of it is happening, and let it go.  But then I read this, and decided I can't do that.  I am an UnSilenced Survivor, and I can't let that stop now, just because I want to shove it all away, yet again.

I am UnSilenced, and I'll fight to remain that way always, no matter how hard it is.  I will remain UnSilenced because there are so many out there who want to be, and can't.  This is me speaking not only for myself, but for them, too.