Navigating away from the bully

What I remember about seventh grade is finding myself in a new school about five times as big as I’d ever known—I was stumped by algebra, and the girl who wanted to help me get through that class was my only friend. Neither of us were cool, and she didn’t care, but I longed to be accepted by the in-crowd. But every attempt to connect with them ended up in some awful embarrassment. It was a painful time of learning how to make friends and how to be a friend.

So I remember the cruelty of words spoken and actions taken, but I don’t remember the degree of violence that we’re hearing about now. In just this last month, Chicago had three cases of kids getting killed at school, and nobody wanted that to happen. So it’s important that we deal with this.

My heart goes out to both the victims and the perpetrators, because adolescence is hard enough emotionally without having to be afraid of physical harm as well, or feel the rage that makes you want to hurt someone.

The key to breaking through the fear and the rage is this: YOU DIDN’T DESERVE IT! You don’t deserve the violence that has hurt you, and you don’t deserve all the stuff that makes you so angry.

For all the bad things that happen to us, the most dangerous part is if you just give in and say well, if those people think and do that stuff to me, there must be something wrong with me. Then the worthlessness just grows and suddenly you don’t appreciate the fact that you are more than what other people think and do to you.

The thing that gives me hope and courage about these things is when I try to look at them from God’s point of view…every one of us is the child of God, God made us and God didn’t make junk.

What this means is that we have unique purpose—we have something to give.

Our worth is not based on what other people think about you. Our worth is based on what God created in you. And what God created in us is wonderfully good and needed!

Each of us is wonderfully unique, gifted with talents that the world needs.

Anytime somebody does something bad to us, or says something awful about us, it’s a time to remember the constancy of God’s love for us. Anytime we think we want to hurt someone else, or spread some terrible lie, it’s a time to remember that our real individuality is designed to love. God made us to love, not hate.

The most wonderful thing about growing up is that you start to notice you have thoughts of your own…that you can start doing things on your own. There’s an increasing readiness for responsibility. But fulfilling responsibility depends on one central thing—sorting through our thoughts and committing to the ones that are good and useful.

And this requires a great strength. As much as life seems like a swirl of other people’s thoughts, we find the essence of life when we find a mental independence from other people. Instead of getting into the wondering of whether people like you or not, we have a right to respect the good we have to share…and really look for ways to respect other people.

I wonder if the key is to be praying on a much bigger scale—for everyone at school. Whether people think they’re in the in-crowd or not, whether people are particularly gifted or not, athletes or not, everybody has a right to know God has given them a unique purpose with talents to fulfill it. Then we can help each other commit to the thoughts that are in line with that purpose in a way that we reject the thoughts that make us feel like junk—or want to make other people feel like junk.

By Lois Carlson