Toad Trouble

When I was in second grade I had a nickname bestowed upon me: Toad.

I hated it. My classmates would wander around the classroom calling out:

"Toad Trouble! He likes flies!"

Of course I would get angry and say stupid things like:

"Oh yeah......your.....your mother dresses you funny" (I know it was very original).

My comments never seemed to do any damage, in fact it seemed to egg them on even more. I had a period of time where I dreaded going to school and I would sit at my desk with my head lowered...trying desperately to get away from my new name: Toad.

Then one day I came in from recess and there was a picture that someone had drawn sitting on my desk. It was a picture of stick figure with a long tongue sticking out of his mouth, at the end of the tongue was a fly. The title of the picture? (you guessed it!): Toad Trouble.

I just stared incredulously at the picture and I felt all of these little eyes boring into the back of my head. They were waiting for the reaction and I knew it. The tears welled up in my seven year old eyes, my tiny fists clenched in anger, and my mouth turned down in the deepest of pouts. I slowly turned to my fellow second graders and prepared to unleash a flurry of insults that surely would send me to detention for eternity.

I looked into their eyes and I saw that they were all on the verge of busting a gut! Then the weirdest thing happened: I smiled. I don't know why.....but I did. Then I began to laugh and lifted up the picture as if it was my trophy. I laughed like a crazy person and made it look like this insulting piece of paper was the greatest thing I ever had the priviledge of holding. My classmates just stared. A couple of them tried to poke fun at me but the moment was gone. I had taken away their thunder and now they were left with a crazy seven year old to deal with.

I was never called Toad Trouble again.

As we make our way through life there will always be those people who want to call you "Toad Trouble". Our initial reaction is to fight back, get angry, show them who's boss. It feels great at the outset, but in the long run it normally just gives people more ammunition to shoot back at you. Why do we as humans feel the constant need to one up each other? Why do we have to be set in a constant state of competition? Why is it when I get up in the morning I am making mental notes of how I am going to be better than the world today. Why do I sit at a coffee shop and size up every man and woman who walks in the door?

I don't even know you and I already have categorized, sorted, and placed you into a slot.

Everybody just stop for a second and listen. We are not in charge! Never have been and never will be. I may look different than you, talk different than you, eat different foods than you, but let's put all that aside and look at what we have in common.

A heart.

We each have one and it functions the same way in all of us. There is no southern heart, northern heart, female heart, arab heart, christian heart, british heart, american heart, chinese heart.........there is just a heart. We all are able to get up and move through our lives due to a common miracle that we each carry within us. Think of that.........this little muscle controls so much and yet we disregard its power each day.

So wake up world!! Stop calling people "Toad Trouble" and begin to recognize that we are all here on this crazy, spinning rock together. Walk out of your house, apartment, dorm room and take a good look at the people you share this world with. We all have hearts given to us by God....let's not spend so much time trying to tear them out of each other.

God loves you.....always has.....always will.

Signed,
Todd aka "Toad"