The Ultimate Bully

My children learn a curriculum about once a month at their school called "Bully Blockers".  I don't really know what they talk about in that, and I'm doing more research to find out, but last week there was a news story about another young man who had taken his own life (twelve years old) due to bullying.  So I decided to talk to my kids.

"What do you learn about in Bully Blockers?" I asked.

Mostly it was about how bullying was bad and how they need to be nice.  All good stuff.  However, my biggest concern is that my child will be bullied and not have the strength to get through it, that in being bullied, like this twelve-year-old, they will not be confident enough in themselves and will believe the bully and consider the worst.

So we took the conversation in a different direction.  After all, bullies have been around since the beginning, and because of that, I decided to go back to the beginning.

"Do you know what happened before we came to Earth?" I asked.

My kids mumbled different answers.  So I reminded them of the Primary song I Lived in Heaven.  We sang it and talked about the words.  This is what I told them.

We lived in Heaven before we came here.  Heavenly Father had a plan for us to come to Earth and get a physical body so we could progress and then someday return to Him.  He needed someone to help with this plan, to be a Savior.  Lucifer volunteered, only he wanted to make sure EVERYONE came back by forcing us.  Jesus also volunteered, but wanted to let us have free agency. (We had a little side conversation on free agency).

Heavenly Father wanted us to have free agency and Lucifer (Satan) wanted to force us.  So a war broke out.  Some people followed Satan and others followed Heavenly Father.  In the end, Satan lost and his punishment was that he could never be born and have a body, and all of his followers got the same punishment.  And they were cast out of Heaven.

Then I told them,  "You are on Earth because you followed Heavenly Father.  If you had followed Satan, you wouldn't have been born.  Just the fact that you were born means that you followed Heavenly Father."

"Do you know what this means?  It means that you fought Satan in the pre-existence and won."

They all look at me, realization sinking in.

Then my 6-year-old shouts, "We fought the ultimate bully and beat him!"

And I tell them, "You need to remember that, if you are ever bullied, that you are strong enough to withstand it because you have already fought the ultimate bully and won!"

Think about that.  I hope to teach my children their value in the eyes of God.  Like the book, You Are Special, by Max Lucado, that it only matters what God thinks of them and He already thinks they are pretty special.  Their self-worth and a more eternal perspective will be what strengthens them when in a situation of difficulty.  I just hope that I can teach them this when they are young and it will stay with them as they grow.

Satan is the ultimate bully and they have already beat him once.  That is a pretty powerful thought.