I don’t know about you folks but I have missed a lot of opportunities in my life.

Oh, I am not talking about opportunities to make money, improve my position or my standing in the community. I am talking about missed opportunities for service to others.

This was brought to my attention as I read the devotional booklet that my church puts out each year. All individuals, regardless of age, attending our church are invited to write an article.

I was especially impressed by some articles written by the youth.

One young lady at the age of 16 took a stand against drinking and getting wasted by binge drinking. Getting wasted is considered cool by many students but not by her. Although taking this stand makes her unpopular with some of her classmates she had the strength to take her stand. She said she did not believe in following the crowd just to be popular! She felt it far more important to do what you believed to be right.

Not many of us, regardless of age, have the strength to stand up for our beliefs regardless of the cost.

Another young lady, a pre-teenager, saw and heard students making fun of another student and treating them rudely.

She decided she should do something about this cruel treatment. So she boldly told them to stop it! She realized that their behavior could deeply hurt the person they were mistreating.

This one touched me personally. I went back in memory some 80 years when I was in the second grade. There was a girl in our class who was not very pretty and dressed badly and we gave her the nick name of mud face and number nine wire hair. Folks can you imagine the pain this girl must have gone through, five days a week, as she was forced to go to a place where she was humiliated in this manner? I do not recall that I ever called her by that name but I did not stand up and tell my other classmates to stop this!

I missed a great opportunity to stop such cruel treatment and show concern for a fellow student.

This is an example of the kind of opportunity I mean as I write about missed opportunities. How many times do we sit with our mouths shut when others are making disparaging remarks about other people, their looks, their color, their language and I don’t know what all.

These two young ladies put me to shame!

At their young age they already have the intestinal fortitude to stand up for their beliefs.

My prayer is that I might have the guts to do the same!

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