On Love and Bullying - Gloria Guest

I was in kindergarten when I learned what Valentine’s Day and bullying were, on the same day.

The room was abuzz with excitement, as we each gave and received valentines to and from every classmate. I felt so happy each time one of the shiny, bright valentines was given to me. We each had a special bag to store them in and I couldn’t wait to take mine home to show my mom and sisters.

But then Janet, a girl beside me, started one by one, taking my valentines and adding them to hers. I was too intimidated to say no. By the time she was finished my heart was feeling as depleted as the little pile she had left me with. Valentines, I decided, was not so much fun after all, and I had just been introduced to my first bully.

Thinking back, I can’t help but wonder at how my child’s mind tried to comprehend two such juxtaposed experiences; that of friendship and love being combined with bullying and selfishness. It can be hard enough for adults to put them together, even as life experience has taught us they do sometimes come at once. If we are truthful we will admit that it is often the ones we love the most that we also hurt the most. How to understand this?

In James 3:10, James writes, “Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.” How many times have I done this; especially to those closest to me?

This can be applied to our writing also. How often have we written that defensive or angry text and then hit send? Or written an article with a harsh edge we try to ignore? We can think we are hiding a hardened heart but it’s revealed in our tone.

“If I speak (or write) in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” I Cor 13:1. This makes me consider further, how ‘clanging’ I might be sounding to my readers. Or worse, to God.

Just as it was too much for me as a five year old to consider the presence of love and friendship hand in hand with the presence of bullying and selfishness, so it’s hard to wrap my head around the presence of goodness and caring in my words, existing alongside my unresolved issues and self-serving motives possibly lurking behind them.

Christ is our only hope. Paul exclaimed, after detailing how he often wants to do what is good but then does not do it; “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Rom 7:24-25.

Both of those little girls in that kindergarten room that day, needed the help of Jesus; one to understand that she didn’t need to grasp for more love because God already loved her fully and the other to know that when someone hurts her, God's perfect love still exists and He wants to wrap his arms around her to comfort her.

Happy belated Valentine's to all of my Inscribe writer friends. May you too learn to not grasp for more love from those around you and to be comforted by God's love instead, as you endeavor to write from a heart filled with love.

Gloria Guest endeavors to write with a heart of love from the Saskatchewan prairies; which have included many newspaper articles and columns as a past reporter. She is published in two anthologies and is currently working on writing a devotional with the desire to provide hope to those who have gone through life's trials.