I learned an important lesson when I was in high school. I attended an inner-city high school, where racial tensions and fights were pretty commonplace, and it wasn’t unusual to be bullied with racial epithets or demands to fight without any prior instigation. I was in that situation one day while a teacher had briefly left the classroom, and a fellow student came to my desk and hit me while I sat reading. We were soon surrounded by other students taunting me to get me to fight back. 

I quickly jumped up, expecting to have to defend myself. But I had attended a Christian Science Sunday School since I was in kindergarten, where I learned about the power and ever-presence of God, who is Love, and God’s requirements for me, as the Bible tells us in Matthew, to love God with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind, and to love my neighbor as myself, which Christ Jesus both taught and referred to as the first and second commandments (see Matthew 22:37–40). 

I agreed with the idea that God loved all of us, not just me.

So, even at 15, from the Bible stories that I’d learned in Sunday School, I knew that this divine Love had kept Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego safe in the fiery furnace (see Daniel 3). This Love, which is God, is still present and available to everyone today. I was encouraged by my parents to be moral, and my Sunday School teachers taught that living the moral teachings of the Bible is the way to be able to access God’s power for good in my life, and a way to help others.

As the students aggressively taunted me, I resisted the initial reactions of confusion, anger, and fear. Instead, I reached out to God in prayer. Well, God’s answer came quickly, and it was really clear. 

I felt love for those around me, and I agreed with the idea that God loved all of us, not just me. Waves of quiet confidence washed away the fear, as well as the feeling that I would have to fight back. I stood calmly, turned, and looked directly at the attacker. 

The other students grew silent in confusion, but soon resumed their taunts, calling me “chicken” and demanding that I hit back. Others vowed to join the attacker, warning that if I didn’t hit or fight right then, I’d have to fight all of them later, meaning that I should expect to be attacked after school.

I continued to face the attacker, quietly praying, until a friend asked, “Well, aren’t you going to fight back?” And I replied, “No.” It was evident that I was not going to fight, nor was I going to run away. The taunting stopped, and when the teacher returned, all students were at their desks and ready to work.

I saw the attacker later outside the classroom and, again, outside the school, and there was no more antagonism. All of the danger ended with my prayer and humble acceptance of divine Love’s care for all of His children, including me. It was clear evidence that prayer is effective and that God cannot be bullied, and since God cannot be bullied, I cannot be bullied.

There is an important point here about God’s law of reflection. I’d also learned in Sunday School that man is made in the spiritual image and likeness of God, as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis. Because like produces like, the creation must be like the original; that is, man is Godlike. 

God is Love, and aggression, brutality, and egotism have no place in Love and, therefore, no validity or power in God’s creation. Such wrongdoing is nothing more than an unreal concept of the human mind. By knowing that spiritual identity is what’s real, I could reject the assertion of a bullying or a violent man, as a false belief, without substance, without power. 

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered divine Science, or the spiritual laws of God, refers to this as replacing the objects of sense with the ideas of Soul, God (see Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 269). This correct identification of God, man, and the universe moves us forward toward spiritual understanding and healing.

It was that truth that kept me safe from harm, and I’m sure that my desire to practice and live Jesus’ teachings in my life, even before this situation, prepared me for it. The power of divine Love was not new to me. The practical teachings of Christian Science had prepared me to turn to divine Love to destroy fear. The idea that I could trust God in the face of the taunting was natural. Resisting temptations of anger, hate, or revenge, we can utilize God’s protecting power.

Christ Jesus did that when an angry crowd rose up after he was teaching in the synagogue. The crowd wanted to throw Jesus headlong off the side of a hill, but as Luke wrote, “he passing through the midst of them went his way” (4:30). Jesus proved that goodness reflects divine power.

The idea that I could trust God in the face of the taunting was natural.

Speaking of God as divine Love, Mrs. Eddy explained, “Love is especially near in times of hate, and never so near as when one can be just amid lawlessness, and render good for evil” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 277).

I remember sitting in class afterward, thanking God that His love and protection included all of us. The attacker and other students were all protected from committing a serious crime, and through the rest of my high school experience I was never threatened like that again.

This experience has proved a helpful model to me over the years, as it shows the importance of the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father,” which means we are all children of God, divine Love, dwelling in unity as one family of God. I know that understanding man’s spiritual likeness to God, and man’s unity with God, is the way to approach bullies, wherever they appear, whether at school, in the workplace, or even on social media.