I’ve had some writers block recently but yesterday as I was thinking of t-shirt designs – this verse came to mind.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  — Matthew 5:10

Now, a lot of people could take this verse and use it to mean whatever it is they want, but I am going to tell you what I take from it and what it means to me. I’m going to tell you a short story in hopes that it will help someone else.

I have never been a crowd follower or easily moved by peer pressure. It just doesn’t matter much to me. When I was in middle school I had made friends with some new students and introduced them to my small circle of friends. All well and good right? My circle was getting bigger! Wrong…

The better I got to know my new friends the more clearly I could see them. They were not the best influence and my other friends were starting to pick up bad habits and follow the crowd. Drinking, drugs, gangs, etc. Whenever I was offered drugs or invited to activities I felt wrong about – I would always decline.

This left me sitting by myself very often – more often than not actually. And at the time it was difficult because I didn’t want to be the only one in the whole school sitting alone. Nonetheless, I was. I also wanted to have fun like my friends and do things everyone else was doing. But, I knew better than to do these “fun” things.

Eventually, it went downhill for the group and I watched it all on the news. This taught me things that I will forever carry and make an attempt to pass to others. For no reason are you ever obligated to follow along with something that is not right.  It’s not the end of the world to sit alone sometimes.

I was bullied, I was threatened, I was picked on, I got calls to my house with threats that they were going to burn it down. But, I still didn’t budge. They could not make me do those drugs, smoke crack lay in bed with other girls or any of the other things they wanted me to do. Because I am my own person and I knew who I was.

Stand your ground. There are a lot of dragons to be bearded.