Well that depends upon your perspective.
If you are a refugee, running from the devastation of your past- and if that devastation has come to define you- then you are a survivor. There is some nobility in being a survivor, but it is limiting. You live in shackles, chained to the trauma that you were forced to endure. You live your life oriented to the past damage. But the largest danger of being a survivor is that you welcome Self-Pity as your traveling companion. Your future is limited by your past, since that is the vision of yourself upon which your eye is perpetually dwelling.
If you are the same person, having been drug backward thru the same knothole, but look forward to something that is "more" (even if you can't yet articulate it), then you may be an overcomer. An overcomer is defined by his/her hope in the future rather than limited by the tragedies of the past.
Take the same person and same severe circumstances. If he looks at those issues as identifying himself, he will see nothing but his lack. If he looks at those issues as horrible circumstances that he had to find a way thru on his way to a compelling hope in the future, then he will approach his life from the perspective of having something worth fighting for.
And therein lies the difference: having something worth fighting for, versus having to fight just because you have to fight. One is the invitation to strength, while the other is the invitation to despair.
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You’re depressing me man. Seems like a lot of writing and not a lot of anybody reading it. Or at least they’re not posting their thoughts. Well I am, and here is my idea of community interaction.
In regards to the survivor or over comer deal, I think there is more of a fine line (or perhaps not even a fine line, but a big mass of gradient that overlaps both sides of over comers and survivors) than the way you described it. I understand the intent of the post being people should move past their bad circumstances instead of connecting with it, but you stated that “an overcomer is defined by his/her hope in the future rather than limited by the tragedies of the past,” and I would have to respectfully say that I disagree (and you know that I am loaded to the brim with that respectfully disagreeing business). It is in my opinion that instead of being two types of people thinking two different ways, there is only one type of person in a single progression that consists of two (in actuality more, but for the sake of this conversation we will just discuss the two) phases, namely, Survivor, and Over Comer. What is essentially meant by this is that you must be a survivor in order to be an Over Comer, and one needs to come before the other. Once one has “survived” an incident it is impossible to immediately overcome the situation and that’s because ignoring it doesn’t count as overcoming it. It takes time to come to quips with what has just happened, but once they have redeemed the situation in their own minds, they can move on to the “Overcoming” stage of the process and their story goes on from there. Live happily ever after…blah blah… make babies………..more babies…. It’s all ridiculous and never happens but it’s fun to make fun of the people that believe it does. However, within this ridiculously insignificant comment is a little tidbit of information that I believe is worth stating and here it is; once again, you stated “an overcomer is defined by his/her hope in the future rather than limited by the tragedies of the past.” And what I’m saying is the survivor can still have hope in the future, without ever leaving the survivor mentality, and thus never overcome the past. They can wish and hope all they want that their live were different, our would become different, but it might be that nothing changes for them. I believe that there is something else that causes someone to overcome a situation. Perhaps it is Character, Personality, or maybe even another set of circumstances, but an additional catalyst involved. If anyone agrees, do you have any Ideas? I have a few tucked away and one up my sleeve, but am curious to know if anyone else has something to say. I think that if there is something psychologically that we could all just be aware of, if might benefit us all in making it through life a little bit smoother; just some food for thought.
Hey Anonymous-
thanks for the post and the thoughtful insights. Not sure if I know you, but I really appreciate the depth and friendship in what you wrote. Let me give your thoughts some thought and get back to you.
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