Imagine an eight-year-old boy at the local school playground on a normal Tuesday. This boy has just finished playing basketball during recess and decides to stop in order to hang out with one of his buddies who didn’t feel like playing basketball. As the two of them are talking about their weekend and walking along the fence line, some kids begin yelling at both of them and calling them names. Maybe they were doing so because they wanted to get a reaction, but the boys didn’t give them one. They wanted to talk to each other, so they just shrugged it off and kept walking along the fence line. 

As this boy is talking to his friend, he notices that those kids who have been calling him names have gotten up and are now surrounding him. He stops as he begins wondering what they are doing. One kid grabs the boy from behind, trying to hold him in place. The boy looks behind him to ask that kid what she is doing; while he was still turned around, another kid steps forward and kicks him in the groin as hard as possible. When the boy falls to the ground, writhing in tears and agony, the kids stand over him and laugh at what they have done.

This might sound like the beginning of a children’s cautionary tale about bullying or a case study for school administrators. It’s not, though. This story is about my eight-year-old son, and it took place only a month or so ago. As a matter of fact, this was the third time that my son had been attacked in a two-month stretch, all perpetrated by different kids.

My son isn’t the violent or confrontational type. He didn’t bring these attacks upon himself. I checked on that part with him, his teachers, and the administrators at the school. They all confirmed the same truth: there was a bully culture at this school, and my son was a victim.

After this third attack, my wife and I made the very simple decision to pull our son out of this school and place him in a different school that he had previously attended and truly loved. He’s only been there a month, but he has thrived at this new school. Today, though, I want to share a conversation that I had with him after the attack and before we put him in the other school.

We had to have our son finish out the week so that he could get all of his belongings cleared out. He had one more day left, and he begged us to let him stay home. During that time, I heard things out of my son that absolutely broke me.

“Why do people keep hurting me?”

“Can I go to another school so I won’t get hurt anymore?”

“Do you think God is letting people hurt me because I’m a bad kid?”

I wanted to do far more than pull him out of the school. I wanted to tell off the administrators who failed to hold students and their parents accountable for their bullying (the kids who hurt him walked into class the very next day as if nothing had happened). I wanted to have a sit-down meeting with the bullies’ parents to explain to them how to teach their kids important character traits, like kindness and respect. I wanted to go into my son’s classroom and intimidate the kids who were hurting my child. I just knew that none of those things were an option, nor would they really change anything.

What I did do, though, on the morning of his final day at this school, is something that does not make me proud. I reminded him that not everyone in his school was hurting him, and he could just hang with those who were kind to him and work to avoid everyone else. Then I filled up the Hydroflask water bottle that he takes to school. These bottles are incredibly hard and durable, and I told him that if he felt like he was about to be attacked again, then he had my permission to swing that bottle as hard as he could at the head of the person who was attacking him, and I would not punish him. I’m not the dad who encourages my son to be violent, but I did want to be the dad who teaches my son to stand up for and defend himself. 

His response to my instruction absolutely floored me: “Dad, I’m not gonna do that.” 

“Why not, son? You have the right to defend yourself,” I replied.

“Because I know how bad it felt when they hurt me and I don’t want to make them feel that way.”

Anyone else currently thinking of Scripture texts like these?

• “God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.” —Matthew 5:10 (NLT)

• “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.  If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” —Matthew 5:43-48 (NLT)

• “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” —Matthew 7:12 (NLT)

If you’re reading this right now, then you’ve likely read those scriptures and heard sermons about them hundreds of times. I know I have, and I have tried my best to put those passages into practice; some days I am better at it than others. I will confess that I noticed myself wanting to change these teachings when my child was the one being hurt as opposed to myself. Personally, I can take it. I work in full-time ministry and have done so for over a decade, so I have had plenty of people insult me, call me dumb, be disrespectful towards me, and once or twice even act cruelly toward my wife… but never toward my children.

It was gut wrenching to watch my son get into the car for that final day of school, knowing he probably wasn’t going to fight back. However, I also thought about the two things I said to him as he got in the car. It’s the same two things I tell all of my kids before school each morning:

1. I love you

2. Show Jesus to someone

Without even realizing it, my son was putting that second instruction into practice better than I ever could have imagined. This is God at work in him. It couldn’t have been me—I was too angry. My son is committed to loving people in a way that only a few can imagine, and he’s only eight years old. To say I’m proud is an understatement.

As we prepare to enter into difficult seasons of life that are filled with transition, as we see a coming election season that will be filled with controversy, conspiracy, finger-pointing, name-calling, screaming, and maybe even violence at times in some places, as we go through life recovering from various hurts we have experienced, may we take the lesson from my son (that I am still in the process of learning myself) when we experience hurt of all kinds:

Love is NEVER the wrong response.