When I was in the ninth grade, my parents dressed in the old-time Pentecostal way with long hair and dresses for the females in the family. I had a bully, several in fact.
One, in particular, was an African American girl named Ranada Steward. She was a grade ahead of me. She had a reputation around school as someone not to mess with and was a frequent flyer of in-school detention. She went out of her way to pull my hair or step on my dress/skirt. She would hurry into the classrooms to sit in my chair at the last second. She would bump into my locker if I had it open to close on my arm. Ranada never had anything nice to say to me. She would call me "That Jesus Girl" in a negative tone of voice. When my younger sisters (I have six) played Sunday School in our backyard, sometimes Ranada's sisters would throw rocks over the fence. Ranada would stand back and watch with a smirk on her face.
I would come home from school so upset. I would pray and ask God why he let all those girls at school be so mean to me. I liked going to church. Sometimes I wasn't thrilled about the dresses, but I accepted that Jesus liked his people to be different and wanted me to be different. So, I prayed and felt that the Lord wanted me to be silent, friendly to Ranada, and show her kindness regardless of her attitude and words toward me. That's what I did. I became the poster girl for "it's fine, I'm fine, and everything is fine," when inside, I was crying, "Lord, why is she and all those girls being so mean? What have I done to deserve this?"
One day in the library, some girls took a library book I had just checked out, tore some pages out, and said, "why don't you have your Jesus fix it for you" and threw the book on the floor. I picked it up and walked away. Apparently, the librarian saw and heard the whole incident and wrote the girls up. They received three days of in-school detention and had to pay for the book.
The girls automatically concluded that I told on them. Later that day, the group leader pushed me down in the hallway and began hitting me on the head. She spat in my hair and yelled at me that it was all my fault. All I could do was cover my head and say, "Jesus, help me." Suddenly, the girl was moved away from me, and the other students around us shouted, "Fight! fight!" Ranada Steward had the girl down on the ground and was punching her. I heard her voice saying. "NO one is going to be mean to the Jesus Girl but me!" Then, someone escorted me to the nurse's office. Almost a week later, Ranada came and sat beside me in the cafeteria; she said, "how do you do it?"
Apparently, the librarian was not the only one who had seen what the girls had done to the book in the library. She said, "I would have yelled, cussed, and punched her for what she did to you and that book. I have done and said some mean things to you, trying to start a fight with you to prove that you're not real and this Jesus religion thing is not real. You just keep being nice to me. I even got my sisters to be mean to your sisters, but they, too, just keep being nice back. What is it with your family?"
This was the opening in which God allowed my ninth-grade self to tell a bully about Jesus, and I took it. She was the first person I ever witnessed to about Jesus. Ranada and I became friends, and after that day, her sisters would come over the fence and play Sunday school with my sisters. I did not have any more bullies after that day. Ranada and I were good friends throughout the rest of high school.
Your age or background doesn't matter; you never know who may be watching your life. They are watching to see if you live the way you believe. It is how you handle situations that will be the determining factor if they submit and repent to the Lord.
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to
give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is
in you with meekness and fear.
1 Peter 3:15
Sometimes our words have less effect when witnessing to a lost soul, but our actions have a greater effect that leads a person to the cross. When people see how the old you has been changed to a completely different individual speaks more to them than quoting scriptures from the Bible.
Do not discourage our young people from following what they feel is the leading of the Holy Spirit. We are all witnesses for the Lord.
Even a child makes himself known by his acts,
by whether his conduct is pure and upright.
Proverbs 20:11
And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.
Acts 2:17-18
But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.
Mark 10:14-16
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