Rethinking Justice

When my family pursued charges through the criminal justice system, I believed justice would be served if the perpetrator was found guilty and given a long prison sentence. When that didn’t happen, and the truth was ignored while the perpetrators reversed the roles of victim and offender, I felt a profound sense of injustice.

A similar experience occurred when I sought redress through the family court system for the first time. Once again, justice as I understood it was denied, leaving me feeling betrayed, fearful, and unjustly treated.

The final time I sought legal remedy in family court, the injustice was not only evident but deeply personal. I felt exposed, as though my most intimate parts were laid bare for all to see, only to be deemed guilty without reason, logic, or explanation.

Some experiences are so devastating that they force us to reevaluate our view of the world in order to keep living. That’s where I was during that final court process, facing an injustice far beyond what I had imagined.

And yet, I am grateful for that experience. It was then that I began to redefine justice—not as punishment for the perpetrator and vindication for the victim, but as healing for both sides. True justice lies in compensating for the losses—experiences, resources, supports, and relationships—that harm has caused.

In the intervening years between that last court judgment and now, I can see the hand of God gifting me many experiences, resources, supports, and relationships that have been what I call “corrective experiences” -- and the way the court order fell on me, while yes being tragically unjust in the eyes of the world’s definition of justice that I used to hold, in the eyes of my Creator, it has been the judgment that has freed me to have those corrective experiences.  

Perhaps in your situation, where there is yet to be seen a visible earthly justice, there is a Godly justice - a path of healing that has opened up for you.  

The other aspect of the healing side of justice, too, is that everything I learned through the injustice is still mine to keep - no one can take that away from me.  All the compassion, empathy, strength of character, and trust in myself and God to pull me through the darkest of times are still safely in my treasure chest of “God’s justice” to be used from here on out. 

Perhaps justice is in the healing and not the punishment.