Empowerment and healing in the face of intimidation

There are hundreds of thousands of search results on the internet for terms such as “bullying,” “cyberbullying,” “harassment,” and “intimidation.” It’s clear that such actions can impact mental health and safety, and it’s so important that they be addressed and counteracted. In many cases laws have been passed, groups have been educated, people have been encouraged to intervene appropriately, and children have been taught resilience, which are all important steps.

But is there more that can be done to reverse fear and empower individuals who have experienced intimidation?

Mary Baker Eddy, spiritual reformer and founder of this news organization, wrote this instructive statement: “The human mind acts more powerfully to offset the discords of matter and the ills of flesh, in proportion as it puts less weight into the material or fleshly scale and more weight into the spiritual scale” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 155).

Prayer is an impactful way to put more weight into the spiritual scale. When our focus becomes getting to know the nature of God, divine Spirit, we come to better understand the true nature of everyone – including the bully and the bullied – as God’s image and likeness. Christian Science, based on the teachings of Christ Jesus, explains the inseparable relation of God and man (“man” as a generic term meaning all individuals): “Man as the offspring of God, as the idea of Spirit, is the immortal evidence that Spirit is harmonious and man eternal” (Science and Health, p. 29).

As the idea of divine Spirit, we are all spiritual. And because God, Spirit, is infinitely good, this true identity includes no evil, no lack of dignity, and no depraved desire to dominate or terrorize. Everyone is God-designed to express kindness, intelligence, and strength, with the dignity that’s ours as God’s children.

Evil may claim to be its own power, but we’re divinely empowered to refuse to fear it or feed it. As we instead yield to God’s strengthening love, we find that evil starves itself to nothing. All that’s left is what was truly there to start with: omnipresent divine Love and Love’s creation. We can rest on this truth, which enables us to overcome evil in any form, including sin and fear.

Years ago, I started receiving anonymous harassing calls. My first response was to hang up. But the calls kept coming. I prayed, a response I’ve always found dynamic and helpful. A growing understanding that God created us all as good, strong, pure, and worthy – not vulnerable, aggressive, or mortal – gave me confidence and helped keep me from feeling fearful. As I prayed, I even felt a growing compassion for the caller, who perhaps was lost and knew of no better way to get attention.

None of God’s children can be a target or tool of animality and indignity. Even when circumstances would suggest otherwise, each of us has the capacity and the opportunity to understand God as Truth and Love, and to feel the unspeakable peace that comes from God.

The next time he called, I felt inspired to share with the caller some of the ideas I’d been praying with. I shared how God loved him and how God created him pure, good, and kind. He listened and then hung up.

That was the end of the calls, and I continued to pray, affirming that this man had an innate receptivity to the active influence of divine Love, already at work in human consciousness, just as I did – and as we all do.

When we’re faced with any type of intimidation, we can stand on what is spiritually real, knowing that nothing but divine Love has legitimate power, substance, or influence. No one is doomed to be blinded by evil’s darkness as victim or victimizer, because in reality we all walk in the light of God, Truth.

We can rely on God, the divine Mind, for the wisdom that points the way to protection, redemption, and healing. And in proportion as we accept this, we will experience more fully how Truth is revealed, Love reforms, and God empowers healing.