Mean Girls

I think I was lured into a false sense of security. I was starting to think that things were going well with the women around me, but I forgot about one very important fact, there are bullies everywhere. There is always someone within almost every group who does not like others to be happy and will do almost anything to ruin that. I really felt that I was starting to make progress at work and that the girls were really starting to feel good about themselves. I saw such amazing changes in how they interacted with each other, they all seemed to care so much and had begun to let go of old grudges and then....the bullies. They seem to thrive on breaking up good relationships, intentionally hurting people for the very satisfaction of it, and have no true depth to their own relationships. I found myself being so angry, that I forgot to realize who my fight is with. My fighting all these months against pain, against people who hurt other people, against people who hurt me, against discomfort, against loss, but they all came anyway.

I had to realize something that I still have a hard time believing. These things will always come, and I have something new to learn from them each time they do. There are different reasons they come, to produce spiritual growth, an attack from the enemy, to produce humility or bring awareness of our desperate need for God, and many others. Over the past year these troubling situations have come into my life for all of these reasons. I desire to learn things so much, but have this crazy need for things to be logical. The trouble with this being that when God moves in our lives or asks us to do something it is almost never logical, God's logic is not ours. All that to say that when people do and say terrible, demeaning, and devisive things I can let it produce a varying number of results. These mean people, or bullies, allow the enemy to use gossip, malice, and anger to inflict any number of attrocities on those around them. Yet, if we look closely we can allow it to change our hearts and minds in ways that these bullies nor the enemy could expect. I can react to them with love, even it takes some time to calm down first! Because in truth, they do not know who they are and are not secure with who they are even if the do have some understanding of themselves.

I, on the other hand, with all my insecurities, do know who I am, I am God's daughter. With this understanding I am trying to approach these hurtful people because they are people who deserve our pity. They make me so angry, so hurt, so livid when they attack me and try to ruin my witness, but in the end, they are just people desperate to keep everyone's eyes on other people's flaws and away from their own. It also makes me think about how I react to others criticisms and corrections, do I throw everyone elses eyes to other peoples flaws or take this observation and look at it without attacking others. Though I do not always react well to correction, I hope to learn to avoid at all costs to not hurt others just because I am. The world does not need any more bullies, it has too many already.