When I was 11 and in the sixth grade, I had a best friend, Megan. She was my first real elementary school best friend. We did everything together: We had sleepovers. We hung out after school. We talked on the phone all the time. We played at recess. I always had someone to sit with at lunch.
Until the day she wasn't my friend anymore.
And that's when sixth grade became Hell on Earth.
Crank calls. Name-calling. Mean notes passed. Rumors spread. Others turned against. Overnight it felt like my best friend had turned me into a social pariah. A series of lies even landed me my first trip to detention. It was her word against mine. I had nothing.
How do you tame a bully? Judging by the news we see every day about school shootings striking at younger and younger ages, no one knows. Nearly 20 years ago, they didn't know. My mom worked at my school, and she was at a loss. The teacher put all the girls in a circle, and we went around sharing our feelings about our "classroom tension."
Being in front of a firing squad. That's how it felt. I sat helpless while each girl took turns sharing what she didn't like about me. And there was Megan, across the circle, smiling smugly. She had won.
Somehow, I made it through sixth grade. And then middle school, where a new circle of friends ( the "popular girls") realized I lacked social purchase and turned me out of the group. I discovered the weird kids: The goth kids, the band geeks, the theater nerds. The newspaper and yearbook people. I went extremist weird because I knew I'd never be "popular." And I survived it.
It was a lifetime ago now. That awkward, insecure, desperate-to-be-accepted little girl has given way to who I am today: Still awkward, still a little insecure. But confident, too. And strong. Powerful. And now I have someone on my side that I didn't fully understand in the sixth grade: Jesus.
The God of the outcast. The God of the unwanted. The God of the prostitute, the tax collector, the fisherman, the possessed. The destroyed. My God.
Thank God.
This month, I heard from Megan. A cry across the Internet for forgiveness. Sparked, she says, by her own children, and the consuming fear that someone might treat her child the way she treated me. "You did nothing to deserve any of it," she said. An innocent bystander in the trainwreck of adolesence.
And I can relate to Megan's fear. My 8 1/2 month old son is a happy, bubbly creature. But I fear school. I fear the bully. I fear the powerlessness of seeing my child hurting, crying. Knowing there is nothing I can do. Nothing school districts can do. There is no logic in bullying. No remorse. No shame. Just power, and the desire to get more of it by reducing another to ashes. Having felt that sting, I want nothing in the world more than to protect Clark from the Megans of the world.
But all I can do is teach Clark what I now know: That no matter what happens, Jesus loves him. That his worth isn't found in friendships, or popularity, or the meaningless of the moment. Even though elementary school and middle school and high school feel like everything and like you will never see beyond it, it will end. It will pass. You get to move on. You get to leave the bully behind.
Jesus heals all wounds. He's healed mine, long ago. It's now a lesson, not a scar. But for the unforgiven, the pain still burned. Enough that she reached out to ask for forgiveness. The bully, now the victim of her own conscious.
She's no different than I was then: Insecure. Afraid. Grappling for identity. Needing to be accepted. Perhaps hoping that through an act of contrition, she can stop history from repeating itself. Prevent her child from spreading (or receiving) that kind of pain.
I told Megan I forgive her. That it is done, and she is released from her guilt.
I can do this, because it's been done for me. My own acts of selfish aggression have been forgiven. I too have reached across pixels with remorse. And though not all those cries were answered, I know that Jesus releases me of my sin. I'm not the same person I was in sixth grade. Or 8th. Or when I was 20. Or when I was 25. Or yesterday.
I am continual, evolving. Every day made new in Christ. Every day a new chance to get it right.
And Jesus is still my Savior. My Deliverer. My Peace. His Strength is mine. His Forgiveness the only reason I, too, am able to forgive.
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