The Outcasts

It’s something I don’t talk about often, but is a reality that I have lived with throughout my life. As a kid in elementary and middle school I was an outcast, the object of bullying and ridicule. Somehow, in some way, I got singled out from the moment I walked in the doors of Lascassas elementary as the kid everyone could use as an outlet for their hatred and spite. For a long time I lived in fear and pain each day, and I bottled it up, not letting anyone know what was going on. In the end, it was this experience that taught me the cruelty of the world, and it drew me with great power to the love and grace of Christ. No matter how much I tried to fit in and gain acceptance with the kids at school, the ridicule just grew, but it helped me to know that the only constant, the only reliable, faithful, loving individual I could turn to and find my identity in was Christ.

I ran across this video today shared on facebook by Roger Dunn, an old friend of mine from college whom I haven’t talked to in a while. It reminded me that I am not the only one who faced these kinds of trials, and that there are so many who face them even today. My hope is that if any of you have influence in the lives of kids in situations like this, the video will help you to understand what it is they are facing, not some kids’ dilemma of mere words, but physical and emotional scars that are re-opened every day they have to enter the halls of their school.

This video focuses on the inherent beauty of those who have gone through this kind of trial.  What I would add to that, from a Christian perspective, is that this beauty comes not out of the individual worth, but out of the worth that Christ gives us.  For those who have faced or are facing this kind of thing, who might be struggling with the destructive message even to this day that tells them they are unworthy, ugly, worthless, what we can do is point them to Christ.  That one so beautiful, perfect, and worthy as the very Son of God would love and cherish us, and that He would sacrifice His own life so that we might live, places infinite value and worth on God’s children.  We are His bride, and despite the struggles of such a destructive world, and despite the self-destructive patterns of thought and behavior that this environment creates for us, we can find our value in Christ.  To destroy and defame ourselves is to destroy and defame the Bride of Christ.  Because of Him, we have a beauty that stands apart from the judgment of the world.