Today I’m grateful for Courage.
Yesterday I witnessed a terrible episode of a man beating up a young boy (he looked about 13 years old). It was awful and very violent. I happened to be driving by, and my daughter who was also in the car saw it happening. I stopped right in front of the house where he was beating the child up, but the man didn’t stop. I started yelling from inside the car (I didn’t want to open up the window) but he didn’t stop. I finally slammed on my horn indicating that I wasn’t leaving until he quit. He stopped for a moment in surprise, but as soon as I let go of my horn, he again began attacking this boy. I again slammed on my horn, and he finally stopped. He shouted for the boy to get in the car, and they took off.
I was appalled that the man didn’t even seem to care that people were watching him do it! I didn’t follow him, though I wish now I had. It took me awhile to get out of the shock I was in, and I finally decided to call 911. The police needed the address, and I abandoned my previous plans to return to the site and give more details. It turned out that the women’s they were in front of (and unfortunately it wasn’t the house where they lived) had a surveillance camera and caught it all on tape. I’m grateful for that! I hope they catch the guy.
It was interesting reflecting back on it. Even a couple of years ago, I don’t think I would have stopped. I probably wouldn’t have wanted to get involved. I would have thought there was too much risk. But yesterday, I didn’t worry as much about the risk. I was in a car, and I could have left if I needed to, but there was a boy getting hit, and that wasn’t okay!!
I’m grateful that I had the courage to stand up to him and get him to stop – even if it was probably only for a moment. If I had to do it again, I would have tried to get his license plate number, and taken pictures, but I think I was a little in shock. It’s not something I’m used to. But I’ll tell you what – afterwards, I felt powerful. I wanted to go through the neighborhoods and try to help anybody anywhere that might be getting hit like that. It’s not okay to hit kids! (or anyone for that matter!)
Today I looked at my wall. I have a picture of a lion with words like FEARLESS, POWERFUL, DETERMINED, BRAVE, COURAGEOUS, etc. I wasn’t those things before, they were things I wanted to be, but yesterday I proved to myself that I was, and I’m super grateful for that.
