To This Day...

Growing up, I was bullied.

In elementary school, it was already in my head that I was an outcast, not good enough, not beautiful. My parents had just got a divorce and I was convinced it was all my fault (Love you guys if your reading this).

In middle school, I didn't know how to handle this and I started cutting myself. I had no true friends, my best friend was my cat. I had low grades, I felt stupid. At home, I felt ignored and tossed aside. I turned to the wrong friends who treated me poorly — but, HEY, they were friends.... right?

Wrong. These "friends" started rumors about me in high school. They made me feel like the scum of the earth. My grades were awful, I wasn't involved in anything.

My sophomore year, I got much more involved with my church. I was involved as a leader in the middle school, and stopped hanging out with people my age. I hung out with people who I knew would uplift me and bring me closer to God. Even as a leader, I struggled with self-injury and still didn't know who I was. By the end of the school year, my loving, wonderful mother saw that I could not handle high school any longer and allowed me to be pulled out and be home schooled for my junior/senior year.

That year, I had a small group of girls that were in 8th grade. They challenged me every week with their questions. I knew I had to be a better person for them. That year, I stopped cutting. I realized if I was going to minister to them... I had to stand up to myself and tell myself that if I was teaching them how to have faith in the Lord under any circumstance, casting all their anxieties on him... I had to live that way. I learned that I am beautiful, because of God in my life and inside of me. He has made me a new creation, that he has created me beautiful on the inside and he outside.

This video is super intense, but I love it. We need to focus on bullying more instead of tossing it aside. be aware while visiting schools, or schools you teach in. Be a friend for someone, weather they're younger or older, YOU could be that changing factor.