I have always struggled with Romans 12, verse 14: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”
As a child who was bullied, and as a gay man who has been victim to countless microaggressions, I would like nothing more than to squash persecutors like the nasty little bugs they are.
As a Christian, though, I know that murder would not be a very Christ-like thing to do. But as a Southerner, I am quite good at blessing someone’s heart (if you’re from the South, you know exactly what I mean).
And so, dear persecutor, bless your heart. May God bless you with an abundance of empathy so that you can experience the blessing of feeling what others feel when they suffer.
Dear persecutor, bless your heart. May God bless you with the gift of poverty so that you might experience the blessing of learning to be fully reliant on God and the generous people she has placed in your life.
Beloved persecutor, bless your heart. May God bless you with illness that you cannot afford to treat so that you may experience the blessing of not taking a single moment of life for granted.
Family-focused persecutors, bless your heart. May God bless you with brothers, sisters, and children who are LGBTQ so that you can be directly blessed by their courageous journeys to simply be their authentic selves.
Dear persecutors with penises, bless your heart. May God shrink and dry up that tiny little appendage that you proudly call your manhood so that you might experience the blessing of knowing what true manhood is all about.
Dear melanin-lacking persecutors, bless your heart. May God place you in a setting where you are the minority, so that you may experience firsthand the blessings of cultures, traditions, and beliefs different from your own.
Oh, poor spiritually blind and deaf persecutors, bless your heart. May God speak so clearly and loudly and forcefully inside your heart and into your ears and right before your eyes so that you are unable to deny that you are a beloved child of God, created in God’s own image, and therefore have a God-given responsibility to recognize and honor that image as it is found in the infinitely divine diversity of humanity known as your neighbor.
There. I have obeyed Romans 12, verse 14. I have asked God to bless my persecutors with empathy, faith, trust, understanding, and full self-awareness. And may God bless me with the same, in whatever measure God knows I need.
Bless my heart.
