"DO YOU WANT A DRINK?" my friend asked me one night last summer in the basement of his house. Two girls were there, and I didn't want to seem like a loser. I had known that my friend was bound to ask me that question eventually, and my thoughts began darting around at light speed.
At the prep school I attend, popularity is determined by several factors: most significantly, if and how much you drink, how many "cool" parties you attend, and if you've had sex. When my friend offered the drink, I felt I had a fairly firm understanding of why I didn't need it. For one. I don't want to have to lean on external sources like alcohol to make me popular or to feel relaxed. But the only thing I could think about was how I'd appear if I said no. The fear of doing the unpopular thing began to cloud my thoughts.
I quickly remembered a favorite passage from Science and Health that I'd learned in Sunday School: "Clad in the panoply of love, human hatred cannot reach you" (p. 571). I've always taken this to mean that we live in God's—divine Love's—presence, where criticism and hatred can't hurt us. That meant it wasn't possible for my friends to hate or dislike me for making an unpopular decision. They could see me only as the image of God's love and perfection, and I realized that they had the spiritual sense to know that they, too, were the reflection of God. We didn't need to add anything to our selves, like alcohol, to be happy or relaxed.
So when my friend faced me with the question, "Do you want a drink?" I said, "No, I don't," I was surprised at how accepting my friends were of my decision. They said that none of them were going to drink that night, either.
I had a similar experience a few months ago in France. Everyone in the group was drinking except me. I wondered if maybe I wasn't having as good a time as the others. They seemed so lively and cheerful. I felt boring and unsociable.
Then I began to resist these negative suggestions that came to me as my own thoughts. I assured myself that what I had prayed before was the truth: My friends could see me only as the image of God's perfection, so I could never appear to be "less cool." In my prayers, I also addressed the suggestion that I wasn't able to have a fun time without alcohol. I asserted that joy can only come from God's love, and that this joy is genuine and eternal, never ceasing.
During the trip, I didn't ever feel awkward holding a soda instead of a beer, and every one of the kids told me that I was so much smarter than them because I wasn't drinking. In fact, at the end of the trip, one teen told me how much he respected me for adhering to my principles, when all the other kids around me had been drinking the entire time.
After the first experience in my friend's basement, I began to think about the other things that seem to determine popularity, like going to wild parties and being sexually promiscuous. At one party that a friend mentioned having gone to, several people stole over $1,000 worth of jewelry and cash from the host's parents' bedrooms and splattered paint over even more expensive furniture. Although I was already convinced that I didn't want to attend parties like that, hearing about it made me think I could pray about the pressures that end up getting so many teens in trouble, and even arrested.
Every thought that comes to us, good or bad, divine Love has already weighed for its worthiness. So teens, as reflections of divine Love, know what thoughts are good.
One night I opened the book Miscellaneous Writings for inspiration. Mrs. Eddy wrote: "Positive and imperative thoughts should be dropped into the balances of God and weighed by spiritual Love, and not be found wanting, before being put into action" (p. 288). This made me realize that every thought that comes to us, good or bad, divine Love has already weighed for its worthiness. So teens, as reflections of divine Love, know what thoughts are good, and because of that they can be free of influences that would make them act recklessly or rashly at parties.
The same night I also prayed about the prominence of sex at parties. I reread the story of Joseph in the Bible, which we'd talked about many times in Sunday School. Joseph was tested when he found himself alone in his master, Potiphar's, house with Potiphar's wife. That's when the trouble began. The Bible says, "And it came to pass ... that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me."
But Joseph refused to be lured by Potiphar's wife into a destructive relationship. He rejected her advances, saying, "How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" (Gen. 39:7, 9). Many young people think sex, like drinking, makes them seem cooler, but in reality they're buying into the belief that the material senses bring pleasure and pain, just as Potiphar's wife did. It's a popular belief that denies God's goodness and allness.
By sticking to his morals, Joseph prospered. Even though he was imprisoned unjustly after refusing to give in to Potiphar's wife, his time in prison ended up being a means through which he was able to save not only Egypt from famine, but all of the surrounding lands.
I began to think about popularity in a more spiritual way. My friends and I maybe weren't as high up on the social ladder as many of our classmates, but we were all God's unique ideas, and therefore equally cool and popular. Knowing this has helped me get through my teen years with dominion and peace.
