Courage

“Dad,” James asked, “could you take me to the restroom?”  At a Scout campout, the restroom was just an outhouse. It was modern and concrete, but primitive in design—and bugs were irresistibly drawn to it. James never liked bugs and now he needed my presence to reassure him in the restroom. We opened the door, and I saw a 2-inch-long skink, shiny black with one iridescent orange stripe on each side, trapped in a corner. The lizard tried desperately to escape, but the corner was unyielding.

“James,” I said in wonder, “that’s not a bug, it’s a lizard.” I thought it would fascinate James as it did me.

James shrieked in sheer terror, spun on his heel and sprinted the 50 yards back to camp, screaming all the way. For the rest of the campout, he never went into that restroom again.

Our children frequently surprise us, though. Later that year, James saw a 2-story inflatable slide at a church festival and, despite his lifelong fear of heights, decided to try it. As he got higher, his progress became slower, and the line of impatient children grew behind him. Finally he reached the top and sat in the staging area. James looked down, gulped, took a deep breath and launched himself. Almost before he knew it, he was at the bottom. Grinning as much from triumph as from exhilaration, he ran back into the line.

We know that children don’t grow physically in a smooth, continuous flow; they grow in spurts. We don’t always realize that they grow emotionally in spurts, too. That little skink was too much for my Scout at that time. A Scout is brave, though, and James proved his Scout mettle. He faced his fears and mastered them. That is true courage.

Bill Bartlett lives in Belton with his family.