“Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out” (Toby Mckeehan).Z

Are the words you’re saying God pleasing; are they lawful?

We all have dealt with Verbal Bullying, more simply known as bad-mouthing someone. Some have dealt with it more recently, and others a while since now. Still other’s who never get a break from it. Some of us do in everyday of our lives, without hardly noticing it. Our human nature is to hate not only God, but furthermore our neighbours, the very people that we interact with daily.

Nowadays, we hear the word bullied so often that it tends to lose its importance, its meaning. We just see it as something that some unfortunate kids deal with, but it’s a lot worse than that.

I’ve been impacted by verbal bullying recently, for a while, and for the longest time, I thought that I was of no use. The culprits of the bullying had me at my lowest point, and they didn’t even have to say anything to my face. The worst part of this is that first off, they used to be my best friends, and second, these two were Christians, or at least call themselves that. At that point, I believed that I had only a single friend left, and most of the time, she was off with these two bullies, and I was usually left roaming the halls finding someone that would let me hang out with them.

Now quick side-note, I don’t blame her AT ALL for leaving me, she was pulled into this just as much as I was and felt just as stuck as me. I’ve been in the middle of these types of situations plenty times, so I know what she was going through.

Sure, I looked to God for help too, but for the time being, it didn’t seem like much was happening. It seemed like a rollercoaster, going through the same scenario over and over, however unlike a rollercoaster, it wasn’t the same thrill over and over again. I will get back to this story, but for now, I’ll talk more about what verbal bullying is into more detail.

Verbal Bullying, is where someone figures they have an advantage against one of their peers. They will most likely talk bad about the victim because they’re self-conscious about something, and in order to make themselves feel better, they will put someone down, to make themselves feel better. We as humans are very protective of our self-esteem, and self-image, and some of us will go to the extent of causing another pain in order to achieve a higher self-esteem. However, instead of making ourselves look the best in front of everyone, just so that they’re not judging us, we should be humbled, just like Jesus humbled himself time, and time again, and build each other up, and help people back on their feet if they get knocked down.

Unlike physical bullying, Verbal Bullying is harder to see and stop. With physical bullying, you can see the bruises and the blood, therefore it’s easier to find the source, and stop it. But verbally, the culprit can accomplish it behind closed doors, and you can hardly tell anything happened. Verbal Bullying can result in damaging, long-term psychological effects. These powerful words will start to eat away at the victim’s self-esteem, and self-image, which can lead to depression, anxiety, etc, if the bullying isn’t stopped. In severe cases, this can lead to committing suicide.

Along with this terrible action, like all things there’s a way to put an end to Verbal Bullying, in fact there’s many possible paths to take when preventing, and limiting Verbal Bullying. Of course we don’t live in a perfect world, so completely ridding the world of bullying is impossible, but you can try.

Tell school administrators, they are the ones who can intervene and supervise the situation. This might not seem like the best decision at the time being, since it might seem like tattling, but trust me, this will help in the long run.

Don’t simply ignore the situation; you can try to ignore what the culprit is saying, but that won’t solve everything. If the bully has lost interest in you, they might end up moving onto someone else. Instead,let those in authority talk to them about it, so that they stop.

Keep going to extracurricular activities; this will increase/continue your social standing. As a victim, you want to get bullied into isolation. This increases the risk of certain mental disorders. Keep up with your friends, because if you do begin to sink into the hands of mental disorders, then you have someone close to you to talk about it to.

Back to my case: I did bring in one of the culprit’s parents, and they got the story wrong, scolded her daughter for some wrong information, which in turn just made things worse. The way that I chose to solve things, was that I was going to submit this matter into God’s hands. I was more committed to reading my bible every night, and I started to look up passages that would help me through the tough times.

I also realized that these two girls weren’t worth my time, and I found ‘new’ people to hang out with. Sure I ignored the two, which won’t stop them from judging them, but for the time, it’s gotten them on my back. Sadly they have lost interest with me, which isn’t so bad, but their focus landed on other girls, were had a weaker mental stance.

I’m working on talking to them, and standing up for others that they judge, which is proving to be a hard task, but things seem to be looking up.

Some of the texts that I found to be helpful were James 4:11; 1 John 2:8-14; 3:14,15; 4:19-21, and plenty others. There’s so many texts in the Bible such as these. It goes to show how important love is to God. From my perspective, love is the most significant aspect of the Bible, next to Jesus. If this is so, we should leave judgements behind us, and learn to get along as fellow Christians.

Kind words are short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless ~Mother Teresa