I am pleased to have Author Alicia van Huizen on my blog for a guest post!
A couch-lover with an overactive hero-complex, Alicia has been known to kill vipers and block the path of runaway cows. She grew up in Texas, but hightailed it to Europe as fast as she could where the pages of history could come alive around her. Her two years of a discipleship school on the Biblical island of Cyprus quickly turned into 10 more years serving as a missionary on staff with her husband where she currently leads worship and weekly Bible studies.
There in Cyprus, her four great loves collided together: writing, history, the nations, and above all else, the Word of God. The product of that collision was her debut Biblical fiction novel, When the Stars Fought, which semi-finaled in ACFW’s Genesis Contest 2022.
From Victim to Victory
I didn’t look for this story. It found me. Sprawled on the floor, my Bible open in front of me, I read her story for the umpteenth time. But during this reading, for the first time, I saw her, Oriel. Like a movie playing out in front of me, the commander of the army rode into her village, burning everything in sight and murdering her family in front of her eyes. I saw him abduct her, force her into slavery away from all she has ever known, her world destroyed in a single day. And her faith.
What then? The only act that Scripture records of this young Jewish slave girl is that she told her captor how he could be healed…
Excuse me, what?! The man responsible for making her a slave, the sworn enemy of her people—she wanted to see him healed?? To forgive would have already been a notable achievement. But to desire good for her enemy? And to be a catalyst for that good?
I knew I had to tell her story.
Trauma. Who hasn’t experienced it at some level? Trauma has become a strange buzzword these days. Our social media feeds are inundated with “real talk” about abuse broadcast to thousands of strangers as though they were intimate friends. What was once hidden and seemingly isolated has been gushing out of the woodwork at an alarming rate in the past two decades. The generation that kept quiet gave way to the generation that learned to open up about their pain. We aired that dirty laundry, hesitantly at first, then with more gusto as the validation poured in and we collectively realized we were not alone. How good it felt to not be alone!
But we didn’t stop there. We decided to camp out in the valley of our trauma.
I did my fair share of camping out there, emphasizing the darkness, the injustice, to garner the validation I felt I needed. I wholeheartedly embraced a victim mentality. And not just me, but an entire generation. We moved away from sharing so that we can heal, to sharing so that we can claim our badge of victimhood and join the club. We chose Victim over Victory.
But not Oriel. If anyone had a right to play the victim, to seek justice on her enemies, she did. If anyone had the right to wallow in misery as an actual slave in bondage, it was her. But she chose to overcome. She chose forgiveness and mercy. She chose victory, not victimhood.
Why did I write this story? Because it is the power of the gospel that I had forgotten. Today’s trauma-embracing culture will tell you to camp out in your victimhood. But the gospel of the Kingdom says, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Culture says you have every right to not forgive. You’ve been hurt, and others should understand and accommodate you. But Jesus says, “take up your cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).
Jesus makes no excuses. On the contrary, He “has granted to us ALL THINGS that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3, emphasis added). Jesus came to set us free from bondage, and that includes bondage to a victim mentality.
Please know, dear one, that I don’t make light of the very real trauma that many of us have faced. We live in a fallen world. And there is a valley of the shadow of death. All I am saying is, don’t stay there! Don’t camp out in shackles when God wants to bring you into freedom.
It shocked me to realize that hanging on to my victim card only exposed my subconscious thoughts on the gospel, that it was weak and ineffective, unable to bring about lasting transformation. This is what a victim mentality will tell you. Yikes! But the truth is just the opposite! His Holy Spirit empowers us to live a holy life, being transformed by the renewing of our mind, that we may be more and more like Jesus. He has called me an overcomer! And He has called you an overcomer!
Oriel discovered this empowering grace to forgive, to step out of victimhood into victory. And that opened the door for Na’aman to have his encounter with a miracle-working God. This is the power of the gospel!
Here's about her book!
Tasked with reclaiming Syria’s glory, Commander Na’aman conducts raids into the land of Israel until the leprosy appears. Has the God of Israel at last taken revenge on him? Stripped of his title, his dignity, and outcast from society, he has nowhere left to turn. Except to his enemies.
Caught in the middle of a long-standing feud between her people and neighboring Syria, 13-year-old Oriel is taken captive to Damascus. But when she comes face-to-face with the man who slaughtered her family, bitterness threatens to snuff out what little faith she has scraped together right when she—and the murderer—need it most.
Enter the giveaway below for a chance to win a signed paperback copy!
(Giveaway runs for five days. Winner will be contacted by author.)
GIVEAWAY LINK: https://forms.gle/2WQKzVWWXX41dTdt6
Make sure to follow Alicia on Social Media:
Website: www.www.aliciavanhuizen.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aliciavanhuizen.author
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alicia.van.huizen.author/