FOOD FOR THOUGHT

I had a different blog post planned for today, but when I woke up, I saw something that hurt my heart and I needed to speak out on.

This morning on NBC's The Today Show, Ariana Grande performed. For those of you who don't know who Ariana is, she is a 21 year singer and actress who has already had a number 1 album and number 1 Nickelodeon television show. She has a four octave light soprano vocal range, making her sound similar to Mariah Carey. She started her own charity, Kids Who Care, at age ten. She has a beautiful voice, a great talent, and a big heart.

While scrolling through Facebook this morning, I saw The Today Show post a video of her performing the song "Problem." I never read the comments on these posts because of how negative they always are, but today I found myself scrolling further and further down with my jaw on the floor and tears in my eyes.

The hate that this young woman was receiving from strangers behind a computer screen was sickening, especially because most of the commenters were grown adults.

Many wonder why today's generation is the bullying generation...this is why. Children are raised by parents who attack a complete stranger on the internet. Children learn by example. If their parents can sit behind a computer and call a beautiful, talented, artist such hurtful things (that I will NOT post on this page as example!) then it is no wonder that children are doing the same to kids at their school.

God calls upon each of us to lead by Christ's example--to love others the way he loved us, to treat others the way we would expect to be treated, and to be tender hearted. We never know what each individual is going through on a daily basis. I have friends in the YouTube community who have had to disable their comment section on videos because it would cause them to sit alone and cry for hours in their rooms each night.

Why do people have to be so mean? Why do they have to hurt others? Just because they have hurt in their heart, they bring others down to their level. Why should Ariana Grande have to go home from another outstanding performance and be exposed to adults calling her distasteful, hateful things?

My prayer for each of you is this:
Uplift each other. Christ calls upon us to be kind-so let's do it. Smile at a stranger. Compliment one another. Pray for each other, and most importantly to pray for the people who have tried to bring harm by bullying innocent people.