I recall as things got difficult in my family in my teens, and my parents drew closer to divorce, I found myself struggling more and more. I began acting out, and making bad decisions. I began experimenting with drinking and drugs. I began going to drinking parties and hanging with the wrong crowd. Around the age of eighteen I got into trouble. I got arrested for drug charges, and soon after drinking related charges. In my extended family, on my moms side particularly, I was now labeled as the problem child, the one who couldn’t behave. I had become bad, the black sheep. And it became generally accepted that I could no longer do anything special with my life. The best I could hope for was to work a back room job and accept my label as the troublemaker.
When I became a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, I began sensing that God was calling me to full time ministry as a minister. This simply did not compute with my family. I had a rap sheet, I had a list of charges, I had done evil things. How could I possibly be a minister? But, I decided I wasn’t going to wear the label of the bad one. I had been given a new name by my savior Jesus. I was called redeemed. Many in my family I think are still in shock. They can’t believe or accept that I’m a pastor today.Â
But I know how stigma can influence someone. You start to believe that the stigma is true. You start to wear it as your own. I have a friend who also made some big mistakes. He seemed to choose to accept the stigma of his family as a bad one, and embraced the idea that he couldn’t do anything special now that he’d made a mistake. Slowly though I think he’s beginning to break from that mold, he’s been attending a church in town and embracing his new identity in Christ.
The worst stigmas I’ve noticed that relegate people to the worst neglect are “loser” and “meaningless.” I remember in junior high and high school, many students were bullied, and I mean many. These children were abused by other children, bullied mercilessly and labeled as “losers.” At my high school there was even a table where “all the losers sat.” I always feared being labeled in such a way. It seemed like a nightmare. I also recall how Christians were persecuted at the school. There was this one Christian girl who carried her Bible around at school and bullies would terrorize her. I thought those targeted as “losers” had it bad, this Christian girl was bullied without mercy. Back then I was grateful I didn’t bring my Bible to school. Today I wish I had stood up for her.
The second stigma is “meaningless.” This is not a particular specific name spoken over someone. But instead it’s a cloud of ideas communicated in Hollywood, the music industry, popular culture, the materialistic philosophy, videogames, entertainment, academia, and society in general, which communicates to hundreds of millions of people that life has no ultimate purpose, and the universe is in the end, a meaningless howling void. Why does a woman objectify herself, go to bars, and go home with different guys? She’s accepted the label that her life is ultimately meaningless.Â
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