Yesterday I visited my parents and grandparents before taking my little sister for some girl time together, this is a usual practice for me, something I do just about every week. While we were visiting we got onto the topic of school, home-schooling, and bullying. Bullying is a big issue today in schools and truly seems to be getting worse to me, I can't remember now what brought this topic up, but as we discussed it I realized for the first time yesterday that there is a part of me that is actually grateful that I was bullied in school.
Yes, you read that right, I said there is a part of me that is actually grateful I was bullied. Looking back I will be blunt, school was absolutely hell on earth for me. I used to beg to be home schooled, or sent away to some boarding school to escape my tormentors. Neither of which ever happened. I went everyday and had to face the fat jokes, the laughter, the mooing when I walked through the hallways, the terrible rumors, fakeness from peers who wanted to use me, name calling, and feeling like I was a total outsider, completely rejected. I was hated, and to this day I still don't really understand why they hated me, but I am glad now that they did, I am glad that I endured through that pain and was made stronger by it.
I know that seems really strange to say but as I spoke with my dad and grandparents yesterday I realized that enduring the bullying had been like walking through the refiners fire for me. Now, at 26 I am not afraid of the opinion of my peers, the opinion of other people because I have already endured and overcome it. People can say nasty things about me, but it wouldn't be anything new, o I'm able to let it roll right off my back. I am not ashamed to talk about Jesus now, because I don't fear what others think about me. I have worked for secular and Christian businesses and been laughed at behind my back by my co-workers, but it doesn't bother me the way it used to, because I have accepted that the world will never accept me, but Jesus does. Because of what I endured then, I can now let go of the things people say.
Today I am grateful for being bullied in school and well, I guess technically at one of my previous jobs too. I am grateful that I learned to withstand the opinions of others without conforming to who the world wanted me to be. I am grateful that Father has used something that the world tried to use my destruction for His glory by allowing me to write about Him and His word. I see now that He allowed me to endure all that pain and heartache because it would make me strong against the world's opinion. This is just one of the things that amazes me about God, there is always purpose for the pain, beauty for the ashes.
Please know that whatever pain you have endured, whatever suffering has happened in your life, it happened for a reason. If you surrender yourself to God and give Him your pain He will heal it and use for His glory, the suffering will make sense in hindsight when you realize it has brought out strength, or patience, or love or one of the many other wonderful attributes that He choses to build in you. No suffering is without its reward when you trust yourself to God and allow Him to use it. Be blessed.
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Psalm 119:71
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
Romans 5:3-5
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
1 Peter 5:10
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
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