Scribed In Light

There are seasons in life when silence isn’t a surrender — it’s a strategy. A holy hush of restraint chosen by someone who knows that the cost of being “right” isn’t worth the souls that might get scorched in the process.

Not because you are weak….but because you know:

If you stay and fight to clear your name, you’ll lose what matters more…and if you speak too loudly, the very ones you’re trying to protect will be pulled into the fire you’re trying to escape.

There was a time I walked away from a storm, not because I couldn’t defend myself, but because doing so would have cost too much.

Lies wrapped around me like chains —painted boldly by the mouths of those who never paused to ask what was true. People believed what was louder, what was easier, what was crafted to distract from reality — a veil designed to destroy integrity… before it could even speak.

I had the truth.

I had the integrity.

I had every right to rise and bring complete clarity to the canvas of confusion.

But I also had something more precious. The fragile well-being of young hearts watching me. Their peace. Their safety. Their mental and emotional wholeness. So I did something many never understood until they found themselves walking in my shoes.

I chose to walk away from the battle. I chose peace over proof, freedom over fury, quiet over chaos. I left behind the fire burning behind me, the lion caught within its final breath of rage…and stepped into the calm, arms full of those needing protection the most. I moved forward into freedom, even as the rumors and lies behind me continued to spread across tongues hungry and willing to carry them.

I made this choice not for me, but for those whose hearts would have been ravaged mercilessly in an attempt to further hurt me.

I left behind the pictures painted by someone bent on preserving their image at all costs. I could have stayed to set that story straight. Instead, I carried the innocent into safety and the preservation of peace. I took with me the quiet knowing that truth doesn’t need to scream to be heard — it knows how to rise, in its own time, with strength no lie can hold down.

But this was never just my story. This is a reflection of so many others — those whose silence isn’t surrender, but a form of survival. This is about all who are being judged for choosing peace over proof. It’s for those who carry the cost of silence so that someone else can sleep in safety.

It’s for the brave ones, who don’t scream their truth, not because it isn’t worth hearing, but because someone else’s well-being is deemed more valuable. It’s for those who are judged without ever being fully known…

This story is also for those who stand on the outside looking in — pointing, assuming, mocking at another’s despair, repeating.

It’s to bring awareness to those who sink their teeth into and build upon what was never theirs. It is a spotlight to those who choose to add their voices to the fire without ever standing in its heat, yet feel entitled to pick up the stone…and cast it with all their might.

Oh, that you would first pause—perhaps pray for…rather than prey upon — of your own fulfillment…

Oh, that you would offer purity of heart and unbiased support, rather than further stir an already tumultuous pot. Maybe then, healing would come sooner. Perhaps then, fewer hearts would bleed in the silence. Maybe…just maybe, love would step in, where judgment merely plunders.

Although it seems a lifetime ago, I can distinctly recall a specific individual who, after hearing fabrications about me, stated, “It would be easier – kinder, even – for her to have a noose placed around her neck, and to be dragged into the river to drown.” I was further mortified by others who joined in with his mockery. Those who called themselves my friends for decades. I could no longer rest upon which wounded me most. The lies…or the distorted audacity of those who once called themselves my confidantes, dragging me through the mud so shamelessly. It is ravenous, a thing out of control, when flesh runs at free will. I won’t lie…it cut deep. Yet something far greater caused my spirit to recoil.

I cannot express in words the weight of that moment – how deeply it struck me, and perhaps, not in the ways you might expect. This man and these people claimed Christianity. Christianity… yet stood hip-deep in their own flesh, casting stones over circumstances told to them, not seen first-hand, not lived out of experience. For any human to speak such cruelty over another… my heart still shudders at the coldness of such spirits.

Yet, even then-even while reeling from the shock of such ill will-I didn’t wish any harm upon them, despite how quickly and easily it had been wished upon me. My heart was drawn instead to the day they will stand before their maker…and the moment truth pierces through the layers of flesh, pride, hate. The moment when the complete clarity of what they had once believed rests upon their souls. The instant it is shown how terribly misled they had been…

To recognize that you wrongly judged the innocent…

To face the jagged remorse of what your words caused another…

It broke me more to imagine that than anything they said. To look into the eyes of my maker, and see that pure judgment mirrored back. I could never wish such anguish on another. Not even them.

And yet, how often do we do the very same thing, placing weight upon secondhand accounts? Stories passed along, where we have no access to the whole truth, only our assumptions.

I’ve been guilty of it too – perhaps in different circumstances, but still shaped by assumptions that weren’t built upon the foundation of truth. Often, when a loved one shares their side of a story, we take it as the entire picture. However, it remains only one side of the whole tale. Their account, with its raw emotions and wounded perspective.

It’s one half. A fragment seen through their own lens, spoken from their own pain-led perspective, and missing the full context for clarity.

Sometimes, it’s a story that has been passed hand to hand so many times that it’s no longer recognizable. Ever played The Telephone Game? You realize how quickly stories distort…not from intent, or malice, but from simple human error. Even the most well-meaning people can unintentionally twist a truth by retelling what they heard, without realizing it. That is how easily damage can spread.

It’s easy to trust the word of someone you believe in, but what if their word wasn’t built upon the foundation that either of you thought it was? Have you ever found yourself bound within a rumor-a hideous lie—or even something which began in truth but was twisted so far it no longer resembled what it once was? How did it impact you? Those around you?

It felt important to share both sides of this reflection — those casting the stones, and those on the receiving end. There’s so much more meat in the layers beneath the surface of what’s truly going on when this occurs. The confusion of flesh, the chaos of emotion, the wielding of words which cut like a double-edged sword, and once released, can’t be taken back. It is an engagement greater than most realize. It’s spiritual warfare at its fiercest…and both sides emerge marked. One is wounded when the stone is cast. The other is pierced upon the day of reckoning.

I’ve learned to walk softly in a world eager to point fingers. To pause where others assume. To pray where others pounce. To understand that what you see is rarely the whole story, it lives somewhere in between.

I’ve learned to shift my focus, not to blind myself to the details, but to look beyond them, toward those the details surround. To lift them in love, in hope, and in prayer. I have learned that grace — real grace — waits for more than surface-level judgment.

So, to those who walk this same quiet, grace-filled road — I see you. I honor your restraint. I recognize your strength.

To those who judge without understanding — remember this — you too will be judged, and with the same weights and measures that you judge others.

Next time, perhaps pause…

Perhaps pray.

Hold grace, not assumptions.

Because not every silence is guilt…

Sometimes, silence is a sanctuary — grace — in its quietest, fiercest, most selfless form.

"The Lord will fight for you;  you need only to be still." - Exodus 14:14

Before forming thoughts from a secondhand tale…pause. Consider the weight of stepping into a story you didn’t live.

Reflect, have you ever stood in shoes like those?

Because once your emotions take root in borrowed soil, they can grow vines God’s grace never planted. Don’t bind yourself to judgment that was never yours to carry.

Instead, breathe healing…speak light…live grace, and when possible, be the peace that mends what the fire tried to consume.

— Tina Campbell | Scribed In Light