This one is for the betrayed, the cheated, the cast aside.
It’s 4:22am in Albania, so 3:22am in London. I should be asleep because we are attending a big wedding tomorrow (well technically today), yet I am wide awake. I don’t know what or why, but when I have a revelation of something, I don’t have peace until I write it down. Sometimes, I realise what has been revealed to me isn’t just for me and so to keep it to myself seems like an act of disobedience. So here we are.
“Don’t forget, even Jesus had a Judas”, the voice said to me. In a dream, quite possibly, it was only about 2am. “I know’ I thought to myself, even atheists know that… but it was enough to keep me awake. Again I heard it… Don’t forget, even Jesus had a Judas”… what could I be missing about the most famous tale of betrayal?
Betrayal ties you in knots you didn’t even know your soul could twist into. You start questioning what part of you made it so easy to leave, to lie, to hurt. You over-analyse your kindness, you replay conversations over and over again. You wonder if you’re too much, or just not enough. It plants a sense of worthlessness that lingers quietly beneath the surface. a weight you can’t explain, only feel… heavy in your chest, loud in your thoughts. And even when life moves on, something in you stays there… in the moment you realised they weren’t who you thought they were.
I am not talking about the ones who religiously watch your Instagram story but never like a single post. Not the ones who only see a curated snippet of your life and form entire judgments from a pixelated corner of it. Nope, not them. It’s easy to brush off the contempt of strangers and to say, ‘well, they just don’t know me.’ But when the wound comes from someone who did, someone who should, that cuts you to the core.
It’s the pain of the ones who you gave access to see the full picture, the ones you shared meals with, prayers with, secrets with, the ones who held your vulnerability like it was something sacred – until they didn’t. It’s the friend who swore “forever” and still walked away like it was nothing, the partner who said “till death do us part” and still cheated on you. It’s the ache caused by those who watched you start with nothing, witnessed your struggle to get something, only to realise, they preferred you more when you were broke and broken – easier to pity than to praise. It’s the heartbreak that comes not from the crowd, but from the inner circle.
You know exactly what I am talking about… or should I say who. Now that I have reminded you of your trauma, I have great news for you –
EVEN JESUS HAD A JUDAS! How amazing is that! I’ve heard that story since I was little, skimmed over it during sermons, nodded in understanding, but never really understood it. The most perfect, kind, holy, blameless human – the literal Son of God – had a Judas. Someone who walked with him, broke bread with him, sat in his inner circle… and yet still betrayed him. What does that mean for you, my beautiful reader?! It means it was never about you. It means you can stop internalising betrayal like it was your fault. It means someone else’s decision to harm you doesn’t make you unworthy of love or friendship or safety.
Not once in my whole life did I read that story and think, maybe Jesus wasn’t a good enough friend, or maybe he said something wrong, or maybe he wasn’t charismatic enough, attractive enough, popular enough. Not once did I hear that story and think what did Jesus do to deserve that? In fact, when I read about his community in Nazareth not believing in him and not supporting him, my first thought was, wow their loss. So why, when it’s us, does our first thought become, what did I do wrong? Why do we question our worth when they never even saw His?
I can already hear you say, “But Jesus was perfect and I am not” and I fully know we are not perfect. But I also know there are a lot of good people walking around with deep wounds from bad things that were done to them, and somewhere along the way, they were made to believe it was their fault. So if that’s you, enough now, the fault was never with the one who loved, but with the one who turned that love into a weapon.
I finally understood why my heart constantly reassures itself with the verse: “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (Exodus 14:14). I pray you find comfort in knowing, the One who fights for us is the One who knows betrayal better than anyone. He knows what it’s like to have good intentions and still be slapped in the face. He knows what it’s like to pour out love and have it traded for silver. He knows what it is like to have a Judas.
And how does He fight for you? Well, I have found it often looks like blessings placed exactly where betrayal tried to break you; the advancement of a calling not cancelled but confirmed, a propelling so precise, only God could orchestrate it.
The Harmony Edit 