**All photos and posts are my original work. Please do not reprint photos or articles without permission.**

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

The Accidental World-Changers

They wanted to raise a generation of people who would change the world with our excellence, character, and superior skills, unafraid of doing right and standing alone.

Well, here we are.

All grown up and no longer staying silent about things that matter, no longer children controlled and smiling in a row. We may not be what they expected, but we are exactly what they planned us to be. They just never thought that we'd be standing up, not for their movement, not for their "values" or their mission, but for each other. Hand in hand, reaching down, pulling up, hugging close, fighting demons, speaking out, hearts beating together.

They wanted to create a force to be reckoned with. They accomplished that goal. What they failed to take into account was that they were raising people not robots. And people are resilient. They are strong. They have minds and thoughts and wills of their own, things that ultimately cannot be controlled forever. Humans are wild cards.

We have found each other, connected, and now stand side-by-side. "Really? Me too!" is the cry of relief and sadness and connection and righteous anger that we hear every day. The letters I get, the comments on my blog, the conversations day in and day out.....they break my heart, they tear at my very soul, they overwhelm, yet they feel strangely familiar and tell me I'm not a freak and I'm not alone and neither is anyone else like me. This is both terrible and wonderful.

We each bring our own strengths to this struggle. Some are lawyers, some investigators, some the story-tellers, some counselors and healers, all are friends to those who need a friend, a hand to hold onto. I have chosen to bring my passion for soul-healing into the fight, to do all I can to help others have the life and happiness and wholeness that they deserve as human beings, to break the cycle of violence and brokenness. That is my gift and my passion. Others in our midst are the masters of justice. They are the ones that have devoted their time and effort to exposing the abuse and the abusers, of rallying to do what they can for the rights of homeschooled children. And they're doing a damn good job too.

"Sit down, be quiet, stop talking, how dare you? you're lying, you're disrespectful, submit, shut up, be sweet, don't tell, don't question, smile, conform, pretend, why can't you just......"   Ah, but that is not who we were raised to be, who we were supposed to be, who we have chosen now to be. We are the world-changers, the truth-fighters, the culture-warriors. Isn't that what they wanted? What they dreamed of? What they planned for?

This exposure of abusers in the world we were children in is not going to end until the abuse ends. We were raised to be the best of the best, to stand alone, to choose righteousness when everyone else chose evil. *That is exactly what we are doing*. With every brave story, their power crumbles to dust.

This expose happened today: When Homeschool Leaders Looked Away.

I commend my friends for all the months of work they put into this. I know the backlash they will received from a culture of image-worship, a kingdom that is imploding before our very eyes because of years worth of corruption and power-mongering covered up in the name of religion and God and "educational freedom". There will be no more silence about things that matter from my generation of homeschooled adults. If we do not speak up, who will? Obviously not those who laud themselves as the leaders of the Christian homeschool world. I am heartbroken for the victims, those named and those still wounded and hiding. And even more convinced that the way I have chosen and the fight I have chosen and the people I have chosen to stand with is all exactly where I am supposed to be.

We are who we were meant to be. We are the generation that unexpectedly changes the world.....our world. Which is more than enough for us.

2 comments:

  1. There certainly is a delicious irony that so many of us are working against the poisonous elements of American Christianity that our parents were promised we would work to perpetuate, isn't there?

    ReplyDelete