My little boy

My baby, Joshua stands at 6'5" tall...and growing. Last night he was the freshman representative for a thing they call "Winterfest" at his school. It's kind of like the homecoming court. Out of the whole class of freshman, Joshua was selected to represent his class. When I got news of this nomination Joshua joked that it must have been because he voted for himself, he's a funny guy.

Joshua has become quite popular at his school. It helps that he has a sister that is a senior, and all her friends are his friends. But a year and a half ago, Joshua wasn't feeling too popular at school.

The biggest kid in middle school was getting bullied. Sounds wierd, but it's true. One day Josh confided in me that a group of kids were picking on him, calling him fat, and physically hurting him. WHAT???? I was shocked! Did I mention he is 6'5" tall?!

Being a little over protective I tried to demand Joshua give me the names of those boys so I could have a word with their mothers, but as you can imagine, Josh wanted nothing to do with any of that. I tried to encourage my little boy as best I could, but this time mom really couldn't fix it.

Ted started teaching Josh some self defense moves that he had learned back in his cop days. Ways to defend himself without starting a fight. Small ways to tell those boys he wasn't just going to take it anymore.

Ted also decided it was time to talk with the principal, so that if a fight broke out one day, the principal would at least know part of the background between the boys.

Joshua's principal was very supportive. He gave Josh some very good advice...he said that although he would love to get those kids in the office right now and punish them, that it would probably make the problem worse. He told Joshua that for some reason those boys had picked him out as a target, and that the boys actually loved seeing Josh get upset. He told Josh in not so many words to defend himself. He advised that if a fight did break out, Joshua would get a punishment but that he would take our meeting into consideration as well.

Slowly Joshua began to make his point nto those boys, and finally the bullying stopped. Thank God!

At parent teacher conferences every teacher told us stories of Josh sticking up for the little guy. Story after story of him standing up to bullies even if they weren't picking on him directly.

Joshua knows how it feels to get picked on, and instead of joining in the bullying as a result he has chosen to stand up for the little guy, and we couldn't be prouder of him.

Isn't it interesting how God can allow something which seems really bad at the time to happen to us, maybe to shape our character and to give us a heart for someone in the same situation?

My camera is not working, but as soon as I get it going I'll post a pic of my "little boy", the gentle giant who sticks up for the opressed.