For-BEAR-ance-INTRO

God’s For-BEAR-ance With Bullies

BY PATRICIA BACKORA

This book, or unaltered portions of it, may be freely copied and distributed worldwide for non-commercial purposes, provided due credit is given the author for purposes of publicity, and none of the content is changed.

Freely ye have received, freely give (Matt. 10::8)

God will come against the wicked like a bear robbed of her cubs (Hos.13:8)

Armed with the Word of God, Patricia Backora comforts the oppressed and beats satan’s butt all the way to hell.

FIRST THE BAD NEWS:

Where two or more bullies are gathered together in satan’s name

to raise hell, there will satan be in the midst of them (flip side of Matt. 18:20).

NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS:

Jesus Christ Came:

TO SET AT LIBERTY THOSE WHO ARE BRUISED (Luke 4:18)

Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke 10:19).

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief (Luke 9:24).

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FOREWORD

I’ve walked with God long enough to discover that there are seldom snap solutions to deeply-entrenched problems. God’s remedies are not like instant oatmeal. But they always work.

This book is full of Scripture references. Scripture brought to life by the Spirit of God is the best medicine for the wounded soul. We are told in Proverbs 4:22 that God’s Word imparts life and health even to the body of those one who receives it in faith. So please meditate upon these Scriptures at your leisure to derive maximum benefit from my message. All quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. This is my version of choice, because I believe it more accurately portrays the true intent of the ancient writers, and has not been biased by today’s popular “political correctness”. A few archaic words have been paraphrased for the benefit of those unused to this version. I have spent years in intensive study of the Word of God, assisted by the ever-present Holy Spirit. He has given me a strong desire to learn more about the fathomless Love of God.

Most of you would not be reading this book now if you were not being affected by bullying, either directly or indirectly. My heart goes out to you. I’ve been there.

There has been much publicity about bullying here in the United Kingdom. I experienced it where I grew up in America. Hatred knows no national boundaries. At present, the whole world lies in wickedness (I John 5:19).

What is a bully? I believe he is a self-destructive sinner utterly incapable of genuine love. He projects himself as the god of his own turf, but harbors subconscious insecurities about himself; thus feeling the need to degrade others in order to avoid sinking to the bottom of the societal heap.

Ironically, I was spurred on to seek God’s answers by the very one who had incited bullies to harass me: none other than the devil himself. He kept on dredging up memories of all those cruel bullies, just to torment me. Finally I said, “I’ve had enough! Lord, make all this backfire on satan. Make him wish he’d never gone out of his way to make an enemy out of me.” Then the Lord showed me it was time to tell my story, and to share all the secrets of victory I’ve learned as a Christian survivor of bullying.

I’ve always said, “The Lord gives the devil just enough rope to hang himself with.”

I am a spiritual freedom fighter, a rebel against satan’s status quo. Where it concerns fighting the devil and his evil works, I’ve taken off my gloves. My words are not always “nice”, but they are true, and they are necessary. Even bullies need to be reached with the Love of God, but sometimes love must be firm. Jonathan Edwards, an early American fire-and-brimstone preacher, saved more souls by scaring them into heaven with God’s unspin-doctored truth than he could have saved by following the politically correct route: gift-wrapping the Gospel in syrupy, no-strings-attached “love” and glossing over God’s warning of eternal damnation upon unrepentant sinners.

This book is very comprehensive. It details the devastating spiritual and emotional damage I suffered from bullying, which was aggravated by observing the lives of hypocritical nominal churchgoers. I expose the heart of the typical bully, and his motives for wanting to hurt you. Most importantly, I reveal how to secure God’s help, place yourself under His continual protection, and remain there. If only I’d had access to these precious truths back in the 60’s, I could have lived under the shelter of the Almighty (Psalms 91:1) rather than under the dark cloud of demonic oppression.

I’m going to forewarn you: Don’t waste time reading my book if you’re not tough enough to take the truth! I do not pander to political correctness. I answer only to God and His Word. This book is not for the faint-hearted. I’m not a sour lemon Christian. I love laughter and humor. I wish I could smile all the time because it feels better than getting mad. Other things I’ve enjoyed writing because some topics can be addressed from a light-hearted perspective. But bullying is different. It is a foretaste of the torments of hell, a place where all hope is forever abandoned. This project was so serious it took dogged dedication to tackle it. How could it be otherwise when the subject matter is so grim? I was only able to soldier on with this project because the Presence and power of the Lord was there to make my heart bright with hope. And, admittedly, my anger against this problem helped keep me motivated. Most kids will banter with each other and engage in light teasing from time to time. But mean, premeditated abuse of another human being isn’t a kiddie game. There’s nothing good that can be salvaged out of bullying. Bullying is a profoundly destructive, damnable crime against humanity, done in the same spirit as those awful crimes committed against vulnerable souls in Nazi Germany. The same spirit of satan which incites murders and torture is also behind bullying.

This book is not for pantywaists who cringe from the dirt of the battlefield. It offers comfort and joy and peace in Christ, but it is not for those looking for a soothing, flowery devotional to help them nod off to sleep. It’s a spiritual combat manual for those who aren’t going to be kicked around by satan any longer! I might be a woman, but the women of God don’t get a deferment from the war against the devil just because of their gender. I talk tough. I pull no punches about my own bullying experience or the anger with which I attack this social evil. So if you think it’s a sin to get mad about sin you’d better just go read some other book. I took my gloves off a long time ago.

May you truly encounter God as you read this book. God bless you.

Patricia Backora

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OPEN LETTER TO WORMWOOD HIGH

(And Every Other Breeding Ground for Bullies!)

Wormwood High (You’re bitter like wormwood, as in Amos 5:7 and Rev. 8:10-11)

666 Lucifer Lane (Bullies are anti-love and anti-Christ)

Hometown, U.S.A. 00000 (Wimpy, worthless schools everywhere add up to a big zero!)

Wormwood High (You are NOT dear to me!!!):

Forty-odd years ago I was too scared and downtrodden to whimper a protest, but I’m not gonna leave this earth till I speak my piece. So here goes: “I’m hacked off at you!”

You profess to be a fully accredited high school, teaching students a well-rounded curriculum. How about adding Common Courtesy 101? Maybe you can’t, because of severe underfunding. For all I know, you might be bankrupt financially as well as morally.

True to my expectation, you issued me no apology in response to my letter. I’d thought that after nearly half a century, you’d be surprised to get a long-overdue complaint about the apathy you demonstrated toward all the abuse I received at YOUR School of Hard knocks!

I wish I could travel back in time and preach that wimpy school principal a good, scorching sermon about his CRIMINAL NEGLECT in failing to curb bullying at his school. He said the violence I suffered on the bus “wasn’t their problem” because it occurred “off school grounds”. Well, I wouldn’t have been on that blasted bus to begin with if I hadn’t had to go to YOUR school! There was not one iota of compassion or human empathy shown by that spineless wormy excuse for a human being!

The worst of the (physical) bullying happened on the bus, but the weapon used was made at YOUR school!!! Butch made his club in YOUR woodworking class, a class funded by the government, like all the other cl(asses) at your nitwit school. I should have SUED the pants off Wormwood High for the teachers’ failure to ask why a mean-looking roughneck kid was carving a big club under his instruction, and on school grounds. In principle, that’s no different from allowing kids to build homemade guns to threaten other kids with. Butch probably got an “A” for that project because the teacher couldn’t see past the end of his pointy nose and thought Butch was inventing a new type of bowling pin.

This was your school’s comprehensive anti-bullying policy: Just ignore the weak whimpers made by that whiny victim of bullying and maybe she’ll just slink away and quit demanding justice! Don’t try to change the foul atmosphere here, because, as Darwin said, it’s the survival of the fittest and the rejects at the bottom of the heap can just go to hell! Just pass the buck and don’t make waves! I was given absolutely NO counseling on how to get legal help to fight the bullies on the bus. No skin off the principal’s nose that my basic human rights were DAILY being violated and my spirit crushed by beasts on the school bus and cruel bullies AT school! I wish I’d had the know-how and the clout to sue the bus company that took no action against the monster who hit me with that club and threatened me with other weapons. But back then, I was just a kid, broken in spirit, who didn’t even know HOW to complain!

Well, now I DO know how to complain! It’s spelled S-C-R-E-A-M! Soft-spoken, gentle people get nowhere in this shark pool of a world! Victims gain nothing but more pain by turning the other cheek to soggy spitballs over and over and over again. Those whose human rights have been trampled upon must make all the noise they can! I have dedicated the rest of my life to waging war against the works of satan, and that includes bullying!

I just found out that American schools are getting tougher with bullying. When serious fights erupt or kids are threatened with violence, the cops are called. That just shows that you can only hide a rotting problem under a rug for so long before its putrid stench drives you to do something to solve it. Too bad the cops didn’t keep order in schools (and on buses) when I was going to school! In Biology class the only seat available faced the front, with two enemies behind my back. One day, after I set my books down and before I was seated, they fired a fat pencil into a heavy book so hard that it tore through it with great force. What if I’d been sitting down, or if it had gone into my body? Think about it. Not to mention all the tacks those two sadist creeps put in my chair.

You’re too cowardly to email or write me back. Maybe the head honchos who ran Wormwood High in 1968 have retired or gone to that big teachers’ lounge in the sky, but an old wrong has never been righted. I was publicly humiliated and a public apology should have been made to me.. My theory is logical enough: You’re scared witless that if I hear from you we’ll sue. But what could I gain by suing you? As I said before, you possess absolutely nothing of value, materially or spiritually. I know compensation is due me for the unjust suffering I was subjected to, but I might as well squeeze blood out of the proverbial turnip!

I was a person who enjoyed learning, but I was forced to quit because my shredded nerves could take no more. The very spirit of Wormwood High is repugnant to me. I wouldn’t pay two cents for one of your dummy diplomas. To put it delicately, I wouldn’t even use it for toilet paper. If one were to arrive in the mail from you tomorrow, I would just toss it in the trash! Just be glad that I don’t name and shame personal enemies in my writings.

I have to laugh when I remember the pride your school took in its “honors societies”. What a sick joke! To me, your school was an outpost of hell, presided over by a powderpuff principal too chicken to get tough with the pond scum trash that came to school just to stir up trouble. You condoned criminals by looking the other way.

Even now, four decades later, you’re still as spineless as ever. You have made it quite clear that you possess neither honor nor decency. Jesus calls things what they are, and so do I. Jesus called evil people swine, snakes, fools and dogs. Bullies are all four of these things. Any school which tolerates bullying and denies victims their right to learn in peace is an abomination to a God of Love. I never want to see Wormwood High again!

Schools never do learn, do they? Bullying ain’t kid stuff! It’s a HATE CRIME and a VIOLATION OF BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES!! My civil rights were trampled upon at YOUR school! Talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! Bullies at YOUR school robbed me of the right to learn and work in peace. The bully robs his victim of the ability to reach his or her fullest potential as a human being. The bully deprives his victim of the liberty to walk the halls or ride the school bus without fear of molestation. Bullies robbed me of the pursuit of happiness, by destroying my ability to even BE happy. Daily bullies threatened my well-being. They snuffed out the vitality of my soul, reducing my life to mere existence. Memories of bullying caused me years of flashbacks and nightmares.

I’ll close on a word of wisdom: If you sow seeds of evil, they grow, even if you repent later. America, along with many other countries, is reaping a bitter harvest in its public schools for its earlier refusal to enforce minimal standards of discipline of unruly students. Even your teachers tremble in fear of actual physical violence from the offspring of those who were treated leniently (or ignored altogether) when they were young. Armed guards patrol the corridors of America’s public schools, thanks to the yawning indifference of school administrators and legal catch-22’s which grant underage hellions immunity from punishment that fits the crime.

Gone is the day when bullying was done on the sly, and only a few unfortunate students were ever subjected to it. Now the bullies are even boldly attacking authority figures, who for many years said by standing idly by and looking the other way: I couldn’t care less!

Patricia Backora

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GLOSSARY OF TERMINOLOGY

1. TOP DOG- The most emulated, feared, and exalted member of a societal clique. He/she dictates the ideologies of the entire group, and will tolerate no dissenters.

2. LEADER OF THE PACK-The group member possessing the power to hold all others under his sway. His underlings readily discard all moral scruples in order to follow him in his dirty deeds.

3. CULT OF COOL- The self-obsessed, exclusive, slavishly conforming “in crowd”, when considered as a quasi-religious group whose members dare not buck the prevailing trends.

4. DESIGNATED TARGET-A bullying victim who is deliberately chosen from the very beginning to bear the brunt of abuse from the bully or hostile clique.

5. SCAPEGOAT-The victim, viewed as a dumping ground for the gang’s pent-up hostilities.

6. BULLY WITHDRAWAL SYNDROME-That restless urge to resume the cycle of abuse, once the bully has been compelled to stop.

7. DOMINANT BULLY- The mastermind behind the other bullies in the pack. Characteristically the most vicious, he calls all the shots, and is feared and deferred to by his underlings.

8. SUBORDINATE BULLY- Usually a cowering “yes-man” who repudiates all his own true convictions in order to gratify the whims of his despotic master. Fears to cross him.

9. PASSIVE BULLYING-Non-aggressive co-operation with abusers of victim. Usually a deliberate withholding of friendliness, coldness toward victim, or silent treatment. Often motivated by fear of not conforming to the will of one’s peer group, and, thus, risking rejection as an outcast.

10. BABYLON- The world commerce system, as controlled by money-driven multi-national corporations which employ even societally destructive means to increase their immense wealth.

Its credo: He who controls the wealth controls the people.

Named for the corrupt, wealth-obsessed city described and destroyed in Revelation chapter 18.

11. TERMINAL BULLYING- Any type of bullying which inflicts fatal injury or drives its victim to suicide.

12. SALVATION-The cleansing and bringing to life of a soul dead in sins. This is received through repentance toward God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Who paid for our sins with His own precious Blood, shed for us on the Cross of Calvary.

13. BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT-God’s second Work of Grace, whereby a believer’s innermost being is filled to overflowing with His Presence. A believer is equipped by this wonderful experience to more effectively wage spiritual warfare against satan, and can more readily discern the Mind of Christ, Who gives supernatural guidance and wisdom to meet the need of the hour.

14. VANISHING PRINCESS-An image-obsessed woman who feels morally bound to continually strive for an ever-lower weight, regardless of detrimental consequences to her own health. She never feels thin enough to stop dieting. Thinks her own self-worth increases as weight decreases. This syndrome often stems from fear of losing a lover to thinner women. It constitutes a desperate attempt to shore up an ego battered by media images which oppress women.

15. THE ESTABLISHMENT-That largely invisible system which predetermines the moral drift of society, and orchestrates its mores and trends, in order to promote the interests of Babylon, its overlord.