Into the Fire

How would you classify yourself in your school days? Some people never grow out of what they were. The ones who do usually remember in embarrassment how they acted in those days when almost everything mattered in some consequential way and how so many times we tried to prove something about ourselves that didn’t exist.

I struggled with inferiority, and do to this day, although back then it of course magnified every flaw I perceived in myself. So bullying was not an option for me as far as thinking I might be or even could be superior enough in some capacity to lord it over someone else. Not that I ever wanted to do this. In fact I was a champion of the underdog because somehow some way I had become an in-betweener. If I go back in memory to elementary school, I felt the favor of many of my teachers and classmates. In 6^th grade I could say I was one of “the popular crowd” at my school. Scoot ahead to 7^th grade, and I shrunk to miniscule. That transition and that entire year remains the worst year of my life. However, I was never bullied or focused upon as being different, weird, small, or bully-able apparently—even though I felt like all of those things.

The closest I came to being “bullied” occurred in my sophomore year of high school at an assembly. Funny how you remember those things. I have naturally curly hair. I used huge rollers (curlers) to straighten some of that curl, but in the end the curls won out. Seated midway up on the bleachers, two girls behind me (Muggs Jacobsen and Bobbi McConnell—if I spelled your names wrong, consider it my feeble attempt at getting even) started discussing my hair, picking up a strand of it. It wasn’t horribly cruel, but all I knew about them was that they were in “the popular crowd” and they were making me feel inferior. I didn’t turn around or say anything to them. But I remember how I felt. Later on in high school we knew each other well enough to greet one another, and we had mutual friends. Nothing earth shattering, but as old as I am, I can still place that moment in time.

It’s amazing how a bully can enjoy exercising power over someone else. Sometimes it’s because outside of this particular environment, they feel powerless. Or out of control and victimized. And sometimes they just enjoy seeing others squirm. Inferiority can weigh in for bullies too. They have to prove they’re capable of something even if that something requires their meanness to perceive success.

Underdogs often demonstrate either fear or confidence. I would guess a lot depends on their support from home-life. They either shrink from what’s required of them because they sense they can’t do it well or at least as well as others, or they give it their best and often don’t perform well or fail. Their resilience to continue depends upon who encourages them and how they’ve come to feel about themselves.

The in-betweeners might feel awkward in certain crowds but not intimidated. They float in and out of groupings but have their own set structures of friends. Generally accepted, they adjust to different environs and get through the hard things with the support of their friends and hopefully their families.

Do you recognize yourself in any of these classifications? Are you still that person today?

I’m still the champion of the underdog—or I tend to be. I’m definitely comfortable in my own “inferior” skin. I can relate to all the emotions of each position, although bullying has never appealed to me, and to a degree it’s exaggerated now along with everything else as sin amps up its last crusade. How ‘bout you?

God, your heart is tender to all, but those who are persecuted are the ones you champion. Help us to demonstrate your kindness but not to enable sin. We’re all desperate for you, whether we recognize it or not. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.