No excuses

Mark 12:30-31 (NIV)

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.31 The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”

Earlier this month I was invited to speak at an event to raise awareness to abuse, bullying, racism, and suicide. Unfortunately for me I've been personally affected by all of these things. The woman who put on the event called No Excuses was herself a victim of domestic violence, and it was such an emotional day. On the up side you have hope. Hope that events like this will not only bring awareness, but will help people overcome these awful things when they occur. Hope that someday people will believe that they are good enough, and no matter what anyone said and they believed that, and would not take their own lives. Hope that people who are physically abused will have the strength to walk away. Hope that those kids who are bullied are strong enough to take a stand and not allow those cowardly bullies to win. On the other side you have pain. I felt real pain for the mom who got up there and told the story of how her daughter was bullied on the ballfield and was so distraught that she took her own life at 12 years old! 12!! She had her entire life in front of her, and now she doesn't. She just wanted it to stop. She just wanted to play softball, have fun, make friends and be a typical 12 year old girl.

Now we have cyber-bullying to deal with as well. I believe it is such a cowardly thing to do, but so many people are victims of it. Not just kids, but adults as well. When I wrote my book Live Fearless, one of the testimonies in the book is about someone who had to overcome her fear of bullying. Not in the traditional way that we would believe, but she allowed negative things that people said to her to keep her in bondage. That's a form of bullying. People are extremely bold when they are sitting at a computer. I don't think that 98% of the people that cyber-bully would dare to say that if they were standing in front of you. But when you are attacked at every angle, everywhere you go, it can be really hard to try and deal with. As adults when we’re struggling with things, there are times when our faith waivers. I can’t imagine being a teen today and being cyber-bullied, bullied at school, on the ballfield or other event, and even sometimes at home by their own parents. Even the strongest of people would have a hard time trying to overcome that.

God says that the second most important thing is to love your neighbor as you would love yourself. If we as a society would live up to that more often than not, I can see a big shift taking place. Treat people the way you want to be treated. Be the hope that someone needs.