I’m in my late twenties now (soooo old). Here are a few things I have either learned or am thankful for in the last few years. In some of these, I’ll keep it short; in others, I’ll go on and on. Feel free to sift through and find what interests you.
1. God's Love Changes Everything
We are all so deeply loved by God. His heart goes out to you in whatever you face. There is no care of your heart that He considers to be insignificant. When Scripture tells us to pour out our hearts to God, it’s not for an empty practice. It’s because our Father in Heaven really is that intensely caring and genuinely loving. He is present in every moment of your life and every challenge you ever face is something He sees with the love of a compassionate Father.
2. Grow in Discernment
Discerning the true character of the people around you is an important skill that you will need in order to have healthy relationships of any kind (friends, acquaintances, significant others, family members). One of the greatest tests of a person’s character is seeing how they treat people who have nothing to offer them. Also observe for the presence of cruelty. Cruelty is the height of human weakness. People who are low on compassion, self-control, emotional regulation, emotional intelligence, and integrity are willing to cause psychological harm to others through cruelty. They have justifications for this behavior in their brain called "narcissistic defense mechanisms” that convince them the recipient deserves the aggressive way they are treating them. These people are not your people.
3. You Need Courage
I’ve heard it said by others that courage is the virtue that unlocks the other virtues. For example, if you want to emulate the justice of God and want to grow in that aspect of your character, but lack the courage to speak up for people who cannot speak for themselves, you’ll be left at square one in your growth. If you want to become more encouraging to others, but lack the courage to tell them anything that builds them up, you will not have grown. If you want to grow in controlling your tongue, but lack the courage to apologize when you say something you should not have, then unfortunately the transformation will not take place. What if part of the growth of our character requires that we become braver in the ways we once most feared? God is able to grant you His courage if you are willing to be changed to become more like Him.
4. Mental Health and Physical Health Work Together
4. Mental Health and Physical Health Work Together
Your physical and mental health are deeply connected to each other. I’ve always prided myself in being non-athletic. Hearing my little brothers tell me about how they did laps in 90 degree weather for their baseball team sounded like torture. Why would anyone willingly do that?! Well, I’m still not running laps in the burning sun, but with age I have had to realize that my doctor lecturing me to exercise isn’t them “checking a box” on things to talk with me about. Much of the health of our bodies and minds depends on the self-discipline of exercise. Now, no one said it needs to be impressive. I still hate athleticism because dripping with sweat on a field will never appeal to me, but I did have to change my practices in order to be healthy. I’ll never want to be a pro athlete, but you will find me regularly working out and reaping the mental and physical benefits. Take it from a hater: working out actually can change your life and increase your quality of life.
5. Peer Pressure and Group Dynamics Can Change You For The Worse, No Matter Who You Are
Did you know group dynamics can change you? The people who surround you will either help you become healthier and better as a person or they can literally corrupt your character. I observed this in a group a few years ago. People who would have professed to be Christians behaved together in undermining, aggression, bullying, and targeted unkindness. Each member of this group would not have had the nerve to act this way alone. Something about the power of the group dynamic caused them to believe hurting people around them was in fact ethical. You have to be aware of how the people around you are changing you. I have seen Christian women engage in sadistic behavior toward each other because of the power of the group. Do you want your character to be corrupted in this way? Or do you want to be a person of integrity? Integrity and kindness require the willingness to stand alone when the group has decided to behave in a completely opposite way. Without the courage to stand by yourself — refusing to bow to the influence of peer pressure — you will make the same bad choices of the most unethical groups. May God give you extraordinary integrity and a form of boldness that is both kind and uncompromising no matter the cost. May you be like Rachel Joy Scott — someone whose fath changes the way you engage in the group dynamic — willing to die if necessary for Truth that is eternal even when the group has told you you are not allowed to think that way.
Did you know group dynamics can change you? The people who surround you will either help you become healthier and better as a person or they can literally corrupt your character. I observed this in a group a few years ago. People who would have professed to be Christians behaved together in undermining, aggression, bullying, and targeted unkindness. Each member of this group would not have had the nerve to act this way alone. Something about the power of the group dynamic caused them to believe hurting people around them was in fact ethical. You have to be aware of how the people around you are changing you. I have seen Christian women engage in sadistic behavior toward each other because of the power of the group. Do you want your character to be corrupted in this way? Or do you want to be a person of integrity? Integrity and kindness require the willingness to stand alone when the group has decided to behave in a completely opposite way. Without the courage to stand by yourself — refusing to bow to the influence of peer pressure — you will make the same bad choices of the most unethical groups. May God give you extraordinary integrity and a form of boldness that is both kind and uncompromising no matter the cost. May you be like Rachel Joy Scott — someone whose fath changes the way you engage in the group dynamic — willing to die if necessary for Truth that is eternal even when the group has told you you are not allowed to think that way.
6. Cognitive Strength
You absolutely will be deceived by deceptive people unless you are cognitively strong. For example, a common tactic of abusive people is gaslighting. Gaslighting is not a genuine attempt to work out a disagreement you and another person may have. Gaslighting says, “You aren’t capable of thinking correctly, let me think for you.” It is a power grab. Unfortunately, people who engage in this behavior must have missed week one of anatomy and physiology class where they teach that form fits function. God gave you your own separate brain from others. Your neck isn’t connected to someone else’s brain. So they need to make the effort to convince you with real logic, not gaslighting, if they want to change how you think. If you were supposed to mindlessly think with their conclusions while oppressing all of your own thoughts, God would have physically connected you to their head. The form of the human body tells us something about God’s design and God’s purposes (yes, shout out to Theology of the Body). Part of reflecting the Image of God is that we each have our own separate thinking machines. The ethical way to change another person’s mind is to present logical arguments with respect. But a gaslighter says, “You remember that wrong.” “You always make things up.” “You’re crazy.” “No one else thinks that.” “You’re making up stories, and my version of events is the correct one.” Will you choose to be voluntarily oppressed by gaslighting? Or will you be cognitively strong and hold fast to conclusions that may be both truthful and a threat to a manipulator?
7. When People Don't Make Good Faith Attempts to Work With You
Chronic invalidation is a known cause of mental illness. If you want to be mentally ill, willingly submit yourself to the previously mentioned gaslighter.
8. God's Calling For You Is Not About You
What if God is calling you to do something and it’s not about you? God put it on my heart this year to start the Embryo Advocates podcast. I was scared. Why am I doing this? What if I can’t do this? But I had already interviewed an incredible person with a powerful pro-life story. It was time to launch it and share it with whoever God wants it to reach. I laid in bed one night with lots of fear: “But what about the harsh judgements made against me?” I recalled a time a pro-life activist told an entire group of people that I came off as "awkward" in a professionally made video that me and several other people appeared in. Would I allow that person’s judgment and group humiliation of me to stop me from taking this step I believed God was calling me to? God challenged me. He brought to mind someone whose “podcast” I loved — Elisabeth Elliot. I didn't start listening to Gateway to Joy until Elisabeth Elliot was towards the end of her life and had dementia. There’s no way she ever knew I was blessed by her radio show. She will never see the “view or listen count” that includes me, even though I was an avid listener. Much of the impact she made on me was after she had dementia, and many not have been able to understand how much she was influencing me. What if it’s the same with me and you? What if God is calling us to do things that aren’t about us? What if the Embryo Advocates podcast is not about me? What if it is about helping people who may not even be blessed by this knowledge until I’m old with dementia or have even passed away? You won’t know until heaven who God wants to reach through your life. So you can allow insecure people who give non-constructive criticisms about supposed "awkwardness" to stop you, or you can believe in the grace and strength of God to do whatever He wants in and through your one short life. What if God has planned to make an impact through you and you will never fully know about it on this side of heaven?
9. Have High Standards in Dating
For women in particular — you have to never settle when you are dating. Consider the behavior of the person you are dating. Do you want your 3-year-old child to be treated that way by him someday? If not, then why are you still dating him? His incapacity to treat you or others well will come back to bite you soon. A few years ago, I had a lengthy discussion with a girl whose fiancé had a very severe addiction that he was not having treated. We talked about the fact that it’s not likely he will seek healing after marriage since he doesn’t see much of a problem with his behavior before marriage. I don’t know why women sometimes live in a dream world where we believe our love is some kind of rehabilitation hospital for bad behavior or addiction. It isn’t. May I say something that will sting? If you always date men who need you to save them — which parent or caregiver from your childhood are you still trying to save? Psychologists have found that people will usually return to the dysfunctional behavior that feels normal instead of going for relationships that are healthy — because this health may feel foreign. If you want to recreate all the wounds of your family of origin, keep settling. If you want your children to someday suffer the same preventable ways you did as a kid, keep dating people who emulate the dysfunction you came from. But if you have the courage to dream of healing, transformation, and change for your family tree, you absolutely have to never settle. Do your future children deserve better than this guy you are dating? Then it’s time for a breakup. (When I say “deserve better,” this is not about money or material things; it is particularly about the character that makes up the person you are dating. And if women were honest, some men will date us and have tons of resources and yet possess the worst form of poverty possible — empty character and a will to hurt others).
10. Is It Ok For Chistians to Go To Mental Health Therapy?
This is a controversial one. Brace yourself. Mental health therapy is not anti-Christian. Getting to the bottom of personal wounds — mentally, emotionally, and spiritually — will make you stronger on every level. I once talked with someone who believed mental health therapy is unacceptable and the only good form of support is Biblical counseling. How did this person believe Biblical counseling should be carried out? You would meet with a person, hear their struggles, then aggressively reprimand them that “they are not caring enough about God’s glory.” I’m sure that’s not how all Biblical counselors operate — this might be a behavior most Biblical counselors would disown. But I want to point out here that for some reason in Christian circles we have something against mercy and compassion (even though the Lord Jesus Himself is Mercy and Compassion to the degree of perfection).
We seem to fear validation. If we validate another person’s suffering, we believe that somehow we are “softening” people in a bad way. I was once counseled at age seventeen by a person who practiced a lot of Biblical counseling theories. I mentioned that my parents had just gotten separated and that I was struggling with depression as a result. This person was not able to hold space for any negative emotions I felt. It was almost like my negative emotions in a very grievous situation were seen as “unspiritual” or anti-Christian — which is bizarre because Christianity is very pro-marriage, so we should also be pro-grieving broken families when that tragically takes place.
It took years to understand what happened with the woman who counseled me in a shame-based way — trying to guilt me into not feeling negative emotions. She did not have a healthy understanding of emotions — that part of being made in God’s Image means we have emotions. Emotions are not just some kind of harmful effect of the fall of man. In a perfect world with no sin or suffering, we would have emotions — because they are a part of how God designed us.
Hating yourself or feeling shame because you feel a negative emotion will not heal you — it will increase your suffering and dig a deeper hole for depression. Earlier this year, I read a brilliant book called “Validation” by Caroline Fleck (as a note, I strongly disagree with some parts of it, but it is generally a helpful resource). She talks about how she treats extremely dysfunctional behavior in her practice as a psychologist. Fleck explains that “Validation does not equal agreement.” In other words, we can validate that someone’s suffering is very real even if we don’t agree with every word they say.
For example, if I was a doctor working in a hospital, I could validate that my patient’s withdrawal from smoking is very difficult. I could validate my patient’s emotions — it is really hard to go without smoking when you have a chemical dependence on this substance that is harming your body. This can be coupled with continued encouragement to cease smoking. We don’t have to be as brutal as possible when we want others to change their behavior or when we wish their emotional states were different.
If someone around you has negative emotions or is deeply suffering, I’ll give you a 100% chance they do not need an aggressive reprimand. Jesus actually tells us in Scripture that He loves those who are poor in spirit — He does not say to punish them for feeling that way. Some Christians are very low in emotional intelligence. There is a way to make space for other people’s suffering and negative emotions without “encouraging” sin.
I can recognize my confused patient is about to fall on the floor and not treat them harshly even though they are doing something wrong. Yelling at them won’t help. Telling them they should know better won’t help. Being unkind won’t help. Expressing the problem compassionately will, though. “Bob, I’m worried you might fall on the floor because your legs are a bit unsteady after surgery. Can I help you take a seat on your bed, and we can see about getting you up in a moment when I can get more people to help us?”
The truth is, it’s impossible to effectively show mercy to others unless we regulate our own emotions. So perhaps those who most fail to show us kindness and care are telling us in their own way that they may have emotional problems they prefer to remain unaware of.
The truth is, self-awareness can be painful sometimes. Those of us who seek mental health have to be willing to be self-aware and really see what is going on “underneath the hood.” For some reason, there is a sect of Christianity that encourages extreme suppression of all negative emotions. I do believe this is part of what leads to unexpected suicide attempts of church members. They weren’t allowed to say they weren’t feeling ok without being shamed for it, so they continued to feel worse and worse until they acted on it.
It doesn’t have to be this way, though. I think we can change our view on emotions and mental health to recognize that God cares about every single thing we suffer and that He meets those who are poor in spirit with mercy instead of disdain. Understanding God’s character as the Great Physician helps us become more compassionate ourselves. I challenge you to take stock of your own emotional state — are you an emotionally healthy person, or do you engage in self-shaming when you feel negative emotions? It is entirely possible to be a strong Christian who believes fiercely in eternal truth — even when the Truth differs from our emotions — without engaging in self-gaslighting. What if your sad emotions are valid AND we can also know that in our losses God has eternal purposes and that His plans for us are better than our plans for ourselves? What if both views are possible simultaneously? Can we sit with paradoxical realities?
11. The Impact of Leaders in Our Lives
It has been said by others that “power shows the man.” Power doesn’t have to be inherently corrupting — what it really is, is a magnifying glass on a person’s character. If a person is a bully then they are promoted to manager at a job, they’ll be a bully of a manager. If a person genuinely loves God and is striving to do all things to glorify Him, they’ll be proven in leadership positions to be interested in the wellbeing of others.
We have all probably had the experience at sometime in our lives of being subjected to unhealthy leadership — it can be deeply damaging. It’s important to realize that God created the concept and structure of leadership. God’s original idea of leadership is not the problem when we are subjected to, what may be, evil authorities. God created the office of authority (mothers, fathers, managers, executives, teachers, trainers, coaches, pastors, etc.), but that does not mean everyone given one of these positions is capable of handling that role well. God doesn’t want anyone to be abused by bad leaders — in the home, at work, in relationships, etc. Relational aggression is a sign of the absence of a real relationship with God in the private life of that person.
Truly great leaders do not always have formal titles. Maybe that person has never been a CEO, but there is something about them that is inspiring. This is the concept of natural leadership — not a person who is trying to grab power and control other people, but someone who cares for those around them in such an extraordinary way that they change those around them. It’s been said by Simon Sinek, “Leadership is not about being in charge. It’s about taking care of those in your charge.” So only God Himself and those in our care can determine the quality of our leadership. Our “intention” to do something good isn’t going to matter very much to someone who feels deep harm from our behavior. Strong leaders are strong on the trait of humility. They can own it when they mess up. They point out their own mistakes and are willing to tell the team they deserve better. I work with a leader like this. When a mistake from a leader was noted, it was announced. I thought about how I felt after this happened. Automatically, without any conscious thought, this leader increased my trust in them because of their honesty and willingness to equally apply the rules to everyone — including themself. I wanted to follow this person more and do more work with them because of that gentle, humble, but also confident way of acknowledging a problem, not making a big deal of it, and just fixing it. May God surround you with leaders like that one — self-aware, kind, and servant hearted.
God Himself is the model of health leadership. Think about His vastness. He is kind, merciful, compassionate, courageous, strong, omniscient, discerning, truthful, wise, and the Leader of Heaven’s Armies. The qualities we may associate with leadership — being in charge, correcting people, giving feedback — are quite a limited picture. God doesn’t just correct us; He also encourages us and builds us up. God doesn’t just proclaim the Truth; He also generously provides the grace and support we need to live out His truth.
Healthy leadership is vast like this. It’s not just “authoritative” in the typical sense — it is highly relational.
12. The Dark Side of Jobs in the Pro-Life Movement
One secret of the pro-life movement that most people do not know is that many of the people who regularly work part- or full-time as advocates hold philosophies about injustice that cause them to be poor stewards of themselves. For a few years, I was a support-raised pro-life activist. Something I realized towards the end of my time in that role was how much my health had worsened while being a paid advocate. There are certain views held by some anti-abortion activists that can cause them to feel like the sun will only rise and fall if they make it happen. Some pro-life organizations have executives that coerce lower-ranking staff to burn the candle at both ends — retaliating against them for using well-deserved PTO or sick days. This high-pressure environment does not lead to more babies saved from abortion — or at least not as many as they believe they are rescuing. When anti-abortion activists are harried and overworked — holding an invisible weight of rescuing the world from oppression — they inadvertently harm people on their same side. Poorly rested staff will snap at each other more. People who work around the clock with anxious urgency probably aren’t taking the time to make healthy meals and exercise sufficiently — leading to preventable health problems and poor self-stewardship which God will hold us accountable for.
Some activists urge all people to quit their day job and become a support-raised pro-life missionary. I have seen behind the curtain and it is often not all that is promised. And you can make a difference for the unborn without being a regular staff member of the movement. It doesn’t make you an “outsider” of the pro-life movement to have a job outside it. For example, the pro-abortion movement frequently depends on the field of obstetrics and gynecology to promote its talking points (though they twist medicine to make their propaganda). They depend on professional fundraisers to keep their doors open. They heavily utilize law professionals because many abortion clinics carry out illegal actions and need legal representation. They never tell consultant medical professionals, fundraisers, or attorneys that they are “less essential” to their work because they have developed disciplines outside abortion.
Certain individuals in the pro-life movement, on the other hand, seem to hold a guilt- or shame-based view that the only way to be an ethical person in a society with legal abortion is to work full-time doing advocacy against it. It certainly is essential that some people work full time to fight against abortion — I’m thinking of the amazing people who run pregnancy centers, provide free medical services for women facing unplanned pregnancies, or people like my friend Virginia who helps change people’s minds on abortion through engaging them with the truth about life in the womb. I could name a hundred more examples because, at this stage, the pro-life movement is exceedingly complex. It has taken a long time to develop this level of intellectual and philosophical depth — it is impressive.
The need is there to have some people who devote their careers to the pro-life movement. But where I will push back against it is when we gaslight people into believing they must endure unhealthy workplace cultures because abortion is such a pressing issue. Advocating for the unborn is extremely important, but I would argue to you that if you’re working somewhere that is destroying your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical wellbeing, it’s time to walk away.
You can try to talk with people at the pro-life organization if the environment is negatively impacting you, but I have learned from experience that in unhealthy workplaces, sometimes certain people are targeted — shown more aggression and more non-constructive negative feedback than other employees. When this happens, it’s not likely that a simple conversation about the negative ways the workplace or manager are impacting you will actually produce any change.
In organizational psychology, they call it “scapegoating” when a manager or executive always has one problem child staff member to whom they assign all blame and treat more poorly than other staff. You can’t fix an environment that handles its pressures by shifting blame. If there always has to be a scapegoat, you are in an unethical workplace. Even if this is well concealed from the view of outsiders. Public relations can be powerful — by using a polished narrative and creating talking points, unethical leaders can cover up their wrongdoing in convincing ways. Kind of like a good concealer — you don’t have acne! Your concealer perfectly covers over it with a thick layer of makeup. An unethical use of public relations in the pro-life movement works the exact same way. By developing a narrative about unclear departures from the organization and repeating talking points with passionate fervor, sooner or later, people begin to believe everything is just smooth sailing.
Underneath, in some anti-abortion organizations, young staff members are experiencing psychologically dark behavior from older executives or managers. These workplace leaders know that if this behavior was done in writing, they would be fired. So they make sure to harm you via phone calls or undocumented work meetings that produce fear-based compliance and destroy psychological safety. When that young employee goes to speak up about the harm they are enduring, they find the unhealthy leader was already quietly conniving against them by creating a thorough paper trail to assassinate the character of the lower-ranking staff member. They’ve been taking notes about every mistake you’ve ever made while aggressively covering up anything wrong they have done.
No worker on this planet deserves to be subjected to these dark psychological games. You deserve better than any workplace that justifies harming you. Please walk away if you are being subjected to cruel behavior, even if the organization supposedly stands for something really important. You being alive is also really important. You can be a contributor to the pro-life movement — a fighter against the killing of valuable preborn children — without taking on either of the two dysfunctions we have discussed. First, you don’t have to live like the world rises or falls on you — God holds the world in His hands, not you. God is the best advocate for the unborn, not you. Those truths remind us to follow Him and that He carries the weight, not us. Second, God will not bless a workplace built on lies and harming their own staff. It’s ok to leave a pro-life organization if they believe it’s acceptable to harm you. May God give you the courage to do it, and may you absolutely flourish in all of your personal and professional strengths upon your departure.
13. Exclusive Cliques are Anti-Christian
Cliques are created through insecurity and fear. True strength of character lends itself to expressing Christ’s life-changing compassion and mercy to those around us, whomever they may be.
Genuine love for others comes from a heart that has been regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit. Knowing God and having a real relationship with Him leads to loving those around us differently — not in a way that is self-seeking, but in a way that has legitimate concern for the wellbeing of those around us. It would be an interesting study…how many people in the world who developed anxiety, depression, and/or suicidal thoughts at some time in their life were pushed that direction at least in part by the lack of kindness of those around them? This is not the only cause of mental distress, of course, but bullying is a documented cause of psychological harm. Interestingly, it’s not just unbelievers who can become cliquey and relationally aggressive towards those around them. Christian churches, workplaces, small groups, etc. can all sometimes develop this quality of clique behavior, and sometimes bullying as well. We can be completely certain that it is not a fruit of the Holy Spirit living inside a person when that individual pursues the top of the social hierarchy at any cost — including at the cost of deeply damaging those around them.
The mean girls should really be called the alone girls. Because they are either alone as a result of their aggressive behavior, or are surrounded by people who they have effectively silenced and controlled. Having a real walk with God leads people to care genuinely and selflessly about those around them. A person who professes the Christian faith while engaging in relational aggression may be deceiving themselves. Christ Himself always sought out the people society had rejected — even the people Christians of the day had deemed socially unacceptable. This was not an endorsement of their sin, but a powerful sign that God’s love and His mercy comes to meet everyone who will receive Him. To know Jesus causes us to break up with our sin through the process of sanctification. However, women who engage in cliquey or aggressive behavior towards those around them are not exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit. They do risk being told what Jesus said to people who believed they did everything in His name, “Depart from me. I never knew you.”
Some activists urge all people to quit their day job and become a support-raised pro-life missionary. I have seen behind the curtain and it is often not all that is promised. And you can make a difference for the unborn without being a regular staff member of the movement. It doesn’t make you an “outsider” of the pro-life movement to have a job outside it. For example, the pro-abortion movement frequently depends on the field of obstetrics and gynecology to promote its talking points (though they twist medicine to make their propaganda). They depend on professional fundraisers to keep their doors open. They heavily utilize law professionals because many abortion clinics carry out illegal actions and need legal representation. They never tell consultant medical professionals, fundraisers, or attorneys that they are “less essential” to their work because they have developed disciplines outside abortion.
Certain individuals in the pro-life movement, on the other hand, seem to hold a guilt- or shame-based view that the only way to be an ethical person in a society with legal abortion is to work full-time doing advocacy against it. It certainly is essential that some people work full time to fight against abortion — I’m thinking of the amazing people who run pregnancy centers, provide free medical services for women facing unplanned pregnancies, or people like my friend Virginia who helps change people’s minds on abortion through engaging them with the truth about life in the womb. I could name a hundred more examples because, at this stage, the pro-life movement is exceedingly complex. It has taken a long time to develop this level of intellectual and philosophical depth — it is impressive.
The need is there to have some people who devote their careers to the pro-life movement. But where I will push back against it is when we gaslight people into believing they must endure unhealthy workplace cultures because abortion is such a pressing issue. Advocating for the unborn is extremely important, but I would argue to you that if you’re working somewhere that is destroying your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical wellbeing, it’s time to walk away.
You can try to talk with people at the pro-life organization if the environment is negatively impacting you, but I have learned from experience that in unhealthy workplaces, sometimes certain people are targeted — shown more aggression and more non-constructive negative feedback than other employees. When this happens, it’s not likely that a simple conversation about the negative ways the workplace or manager are impacting you will actually produce any change.
In organizational psychology, they call it “scapegoating” when a manager or executive always has one problem child staff member to whom they assign all blame and treat more poorly than other staff. You can’t fix an environment that handles its pressures by shifting blame. If there always has to be a scapegoat, you are in an unethical workplace. Even if this is well concealed from the view of outsiders. Public relations can be powerful — by using a polished narrative and creating talking points, unethical leaders can cover up their wrongdoing in convincing ways. Kind of like a good concealer — you don’t have acne! Your concealer perfectly covers over it with a thick layer of makeup. An unethical use of public relations in the pro-life movement works the exact same way. By developing a narrative about unclear departures from the organization and repeating talking points with passionate fervor, sooner or later, people begin to believe everything is just smooth sailing.
Underneath, in some anti-abortion organizations, young staff members are experiencing psychologically dark behavior from older executives or managers. These workplace leaders know that if this behavior was done in writing, they would be fired. So they make sure to harm you via phone calls or undocumented work meetings that produce fear-based compliance and destroy psychological safety. When that young employee goes to speak up about the harm they are enduring, they find the unhealthy leader was already quietly conniving against them by creating a thorough paper trail to assassinate the character of the lower-ranking staff member. They’ve been taking notes about every mistake you’ve ever made while aggressively covering up anything wrong they have done.
No worker on this planet deserves to be subjected to these dark psychological games. You deserve better than any workplace that justifies harming you. Please walk away if you are being subjected to cruel behavior, even if the organization supposedly stands for something really important. You being alive is also really important. You can be a contributor to the pro-life movement — a fighter against the killing of valuable preborn children — without taking on either of the two dysfunctions we have discussed. First, you don’t have to live like the world rises or falls on you — God holds the world in His hands, not you. God is the best advocate for the unborn, not you. Those truths remind us to follow Him and that He carries the weight, not us. Second, God will not bless a workplace built on lies and harming their own staff. It’s ok to leave a pro-life organization if they believe it’s acceptable to harm you. May God give you the courage to do it, and may you absolutely flourish in all of your personal and professional strengths upon your departure.
13. Exclusive Cliques are Anti-Christian
Cliques are created through insecurity and fear. True strength of character lends itself to expressing Christ’s life-changing compassion and mercy to those around us, whomever they may be.
Genuine love for others comes from a heart that has been regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit. Knowing God and having a real relationship with Him leads to loving those around us differently — not in a way that is self-seeking, but in a way that has legitimate concern for the wellbeing of those around us. It would be an interesting study…how many people in the world who developed anxiety, depression, and/or suicidal thoughts at some time in their life were pushed that direction at least in part by the lack of kindness of those around them? This is not the only cause of mental distress, of course, but bullying is a documented cause of psychological harm. Interestingly, it’s not just unbelievers who can become cliquey and relationally aggressive towards those around them. Christian churches, workplaces, small groups, etc. can all sometimes develop this quality of clique behavior, and sometimes bullying as well. We can be completely certain that it is not a fruit of the Holy Spirit living inside a person when that individual pursues the top of the social hierarchy at any cost — including at the cost of deeply damaging those around them.
The mean girls should really be called the alone girls. Because they are either alone as a result of their aggressive behavior, or are surrounded by people who they have effectively silenced and controlled. Having a real walk with God leads people to care genuinely and selflessly about those around them. A person who professes the Christian faith while engaging in relational aggression may be deceiving themselves. Christ Himself always sought out the people society had rejected — even the people Christians of the day had deemed socially unacceptable. This was not an endorsement of their sin, but a powerful sign that God’s love and His mercy comes to meet everyone who will receive Him. To know Jesus causes us to break up with our sin through the process of sanctification. However, women who engage in cliquey or aggressive behavior towards those around them are not exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit. They do risk being told what Jesus said to people who believed they did everything in His name, “Depart from me. I never knew you.”
Conclusion
If you apply yourself and pay attention to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, your twenties can be a great period of growth in your life. Don't live your young years merely for self-serving purposes; ask God to help you to desire to serve Him most of all. God made you and invented you with particular purposes in mind. Pray that He would conform you to the image of His Son and that you would courageously and joyfully live out all the plans God has for you. It may not always look the way we expected, but when we yield ourselves to Christ, He gives us day to day lives that include opportunities to bear fruit in ways that will matter for all eternity. Even if it may appear small to us in the moment.
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