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Wednesday, March 29, 2017

It's my fault. I deserve this.

I drove the cheap car we had.  It needed extra care.  Oil at every fillup. 
Tonight was a date.   I new the rules. Be safe, make the young ladies in our care feel safe, and add the oil.  We did it.  Great night.  On the way home.  I stopped to get gas.  I said, I need to go in to get oil too.  I went in.  The girls came in to use the facilities.   My friend came in.  We decided to get some sodas and snacks for the drive home.  It was great. Paid, snacks and on our way.  12 miles from home the car overheated.  The oil.  We did our best.  Got oil limped to within a few miles from home and got one of the girl's fathers to bring a truck with a towrope.
I knew and it broke.  That's easy.  It's my fault.
How about this, a young man is told not to  go to a certain part of town alone, especially after dark.  He finds out that the shop that sells his favorite collectibles  has a key item he needs for his collection.  He has to get there before 9pm closing or tomorrow it goes to another buyer.   But it is in THAT part of town.  While he's in the store he comes out to find that his new car has been stripped.   No one saw anything.  No footage.   It's his fault right?

Are the 2 situations the same?  The one is a neglect of maintenance and the consequence is directly related to him.  The other is advice about choice.  Bad things happen here. You go it coukd happen.  But the bad things only happens if someone else chooses to break a law or sin.

When we give advice to our children sometimes we stress both types in ways that upon the other end they feel at fault but the problem is that in one situation they've been victimized.  Hurt in need of someone to rebuild the good in them.  But if you are at fault and victimized are you going to talk to someone?

A further step.

A young lady at school two years ago came to me while I was working on music at tge Browning Center.  She'd been hurt.  Got into a relationship with a much older man, in a position of power who was manipulative and narcissistic.  He took from her in a way I'd rather not get into.
To her, everbody had told her not to do it, I was guilty of giving such advice.  Don't go out with him.  It's her fault she said. 

Victimized in one of the worst ways and believing the aggressor was clear of blame.  People say it's slut shaming that causes it.  That perpetuates.  Deep within is this idea that we deserve immediate terrible punishment evertime we fail to follow advice.
We give guidlines, family rules because we don't want to see our lived ones have pain.

Don't mix up mistake or poor choice with  sin.  When you've been victimized crminally, sexually, whatever.  If your choice was no.  The sin or crime is on the one who did it.  I have seen this enough now that I wanted to write this down in case I needed to find these words again.

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