He fights for me

     When I was younger,  I had to fight a monster.  He put a face to evil and intruded where he was not welcome.  I was a rather naive middle schooler when the abuse began, and I was forced into a battle I could never win.  It was a battle I was much to young to fight in, but I had no one to fight for me.  With no one to fight on my behalf, I fought as best as my little mind and body could against an evil larger than life.  In fighting that battle, I was also fighting just to stay alive.  There were multiple times I feared I would lose that battle either at his hands or my own, but by nothing short of a miracle, I am still alive...but I'm also still fighting even though the abuse itself is long over.
     Through the years everything was happening, I don't remember wanting anyone to fight for me.  I was simply numb.  I just wanted to make it to another day still breathing.  I was more afraid of what would happen if anyone who had the ability to fight for me found out.  I was certain his threats would all prove true, and that fear was more powerful than my desire to be protected as someone else more equipped than myself engaged in battle.
     The years after it all ended were years of silence and denial, then one day, the weight was too much, and I "confessed" what I thought were my own unforgivable sins.  It was in the years following that very first disclosure that I longed for someone to fight for me...to fight for truth, to fight for hope, to fight for healing...because I couldn't hold up in battle any longer.  The years of fighting as such a young girl had left me broken and battered beyond recognition inside.
     My battle was no longer against the evil waiting for me every day to take more of what was not his.  That battle had past, and I did not win; fighting on my own, I never had a chance to.  Now my battle was for myself.  I was fighting to live again.  I was fighting for truth.  I was fighting for hope.  I was fighting for redemption and healing.  But I had no more fight left in me, and once again, I found there was no one to fight for me...not even in the church--in fact, especially not in the church.  It seemed there was no reason to fight at all, so I stopped.
     God is an incredible God though.  He knew what I needed even when I didn't.  He moved my family (which I was not happy about), and we started our new life in a new state where we knew pretty much no one.  I figured that at the very least, I could finally ignore my past for good and no one had to know.  I could safely hide in our new hometown, because there was no one there who knew what I was hiding from.  God had my past waiting for me when we got there though, and after years and years of giving up the fight, God sent someone to tell me that God was fighting for me.  God was *for* me.
     To say I was skeptical of such a bold statement would be a vast understatement, but hearing that stirred within me that long lost hope that someone would fight for me.  I may have given up, but I still wanted someone to care enough to stand up for me against the lies and fight for truth and hope and healing.  Despite how much I did not believe what I was being told, I stuck around to hear more from this person, who also happened to be a pastor (and in my experience, pastors were dangerous...I had steered clear of my story in a pastors care for ten years).  I kept asking questions.  He kept offering patient and gentle answers, even to the same questions over and over again.  He never wavered in telling me that God was for me, that God was fighting for me.  It was nice to hear, but words alone meant nothing.  I needed to see it.  I needed God to make that real.
     A number of months after I first was told God was for me and fighting for me, I found myself learning to study His Word for myself in psalm 18.  It's been a long, ongoing, and very profound study for me.  That psalm has quite literally changed my life and is being used by God both as an anchor to steady me on this rough journey and a guide as I continue along it with Him.  It is a psalm written by David after God delivered him from the hand of Saul after many, many years of running for his life in the wilderness.  If anyone can understand fighting for your own life, it would be David.  My fight and David's fight were different in nature, but for both of us, our lives were at stake.  That similarity alone helped this passage resonate with me as I read and studied it.
     While looking at individual truths the verses of this chapter contain has been quite beneficial, and I continue to keep at it, reading the psalm as a whole proved much more profitable than I could have anticipated.  I could write for hours about what I have learned, but I will condense it for the sake of this (already lengthy) post.  I highly recommend taking the time to read psalm 18 as well.  It is 50 verses that are well worth your time.  I will start with verse 6 though.
     In verse 6, David cried out to God in the midst of his distress.  Remember, this distress David is in is a fight for his very life.  His cries to God are ones of desperation for help and deliverance.  He takes comfort in knowing God hears him, but he cries out nonetheless.  What I found remarkable, though, was that God answered him in a mighty way in the very next verse.

"Then the earth reeled and rocked;

the foundations also of the mountains trembled

and quaked, because He was angry." Ps. 18:7

     David cried out to God, and God answered.  God was angry at the plight David's enemies had His precious son in.  God heard David's prayers, and He moved the earth and mountains to come to the rescue of His child and fight for David.  In verses 8-19, God comes down to rescue David from enemies that were too strong and mighty for him, to support David when his foes rose up against him, to fight for David in a battle David could not fight on his own, and all because God delighted in David.  He came down from heaven to fight for His child, and He fights with a power none can match.  God does not fall to the power of any man.  When God fights, God always reigns victorious.

     Later in the psalm, David finds himself preparing for battle again, but this battle God has ordained for him to fight himself.  Thankfully, he is not left to fight in his own strength.

"He trains my hands for war,

so that my arms can bend a bow of 

bronze...For You equipped me with strength 

for the battle; You made those who 

rise against me sink under me."  Ps. 18:34, 39

     When God wanted David to fight, He provided the training and the strength to David that was necessary to win the battle.  God equipped David for the fight he would face.  David was not left to his own strength to fight the enemy.  God trained and equipped him from the inside out.  He gave David strength inside to withstand the mental toll a battle takes, and He also gave David the physical strength it would take to be victorious against those who came against God's child.  David was victorious, because God fought through David.

     How amazing it was to see that God fought for David by rescuing him when the battle was for God to fight on David's behalf and by fighting through David when David was to rely on His strength and training for the fight he was facing.  The most amazing part of it all is that God is unchanging.  He is the same God now as He was when He fought for David.  If He fought for David because He delighted in His child, He fights for me because I, too, am His child.  

     At times, He will fight by rescuing me out of the battle when my enemy is too strong and I too weak.  He will, at those times, wrap me in His protection while He fights the battle I cannot withstand.  Other times, He will call me to stand tall and enter the battle myself.  He does not leave me alone in those battles though.  He trains and equips me with all the strength I need to fight the battle...both inner strength and outward strength.  He will fight for me, but in those times, His fighting for me will be Him fighting through me.  

     I spent years just waiting for someone to fight for me, to stand up for me as I couldn't stand on my own broken feet.  I needed someone to fight for the truth I cannot see in the middle of the tangled web of lies that has made its home in my head.  I needed someone to fight for the hope I don't always see.  I needed someone to fight for the redemption and healing I struggle to believe is waiting for me.  I needed someone to care enough to fight for me...for my life...someone to say it wasn't right and I did not deserve it.  

     I had no clue that there was Someone with me, fighting for me all along.  I needed someone to show me God was fighting for me, caring for me, saying it wasn't right and I didn't deserve it.  God is fighting for me, but He is also placing other people in the battle with me and Him.  I cannot always see how He is fighting for me, and at times, I still fall prey to the lie that He doesn't care and isn't fighting for me.  Each time, He gently reminds me, in one way or another, that He is for me in every step of this fight...this journey to healing I am on.

     My dear, sweet sisters, He is *for* YOU!  He is fighting for truth in the middle of your tangled web of lies.  He is fighting for hope when you think it's gone.  He is fighting for redemption and healing when you think that is just for fairy tales.  He is fighting for you!  He cares for you enough to fight for you!  Just like He did for David, He will shake the earth and mountains to fight for you because He delights in you, His daughter.  He is standing up to say it was not right and you did not deserve it.  He cares enough to fight for you.  Some days, that means He fights for you while you just try to breathe.  Other days, He will give you a strength you did not know you had to fight in ways you did not know you could.  Those days He is fighting for you by fighting through you.  Each day the battle will look different and the same, but no matter what the day brings, HE FIGHTS FOR YOU!  And He fights for me too.