The Story of Joshua~Intro and Chapter 1

As our team has been reading through everyone's submissions (and thank you so much to everyone who has submitted a story so far) we would like to share with you the story of the man who created the idea and vision of "The Greatest Stories Ever Told" project. Joshua is an amazing man who has been through and is still going through a tormentous journey; fighting for his life.  He has spent his life fighting for himself, and even when it puts his life in jeopardy, fighting for others.  He is the inspiration to our entire team and we are blessed not just to know him, but to carry out his vision and to share with you the story of this awe-inspiring man.

Over the next few weeks while the submitted stories are edited, reviewed, and we contact the authors for permission rights, we'd like share pieces of his long, tribulation filled journey.  We hope that it inspires you and lifts you up like he does for us each and every day.


This is the beginning...


~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's hard to begin a story where the hero is a man who has more grace and patience than a man should be capable of. It's hard to begin when the story of the horrors he has lived through at the hands of people who should have taken care of him are immense and numerous.

Since before birth, Death has been aching for Joshua's life. Joshua was almost never born, and the world would be a much worse off place if that were so.  The night his mother went into labor there was a terrible snow storm.  His father, driving the car, hit a patch of ice, slid, and hit another car. This happened to be a police officer vehicle. The police officer assisted them on making it to the hospital, wrote Joshua's father a ticket, and Joshua was born. The story was so remarkable that it made the front page on every local newspaper, and was picked up and run in several national papers as well. The headline: Joshua Arrives!

Joshua has always been an incredibly gifted and advanced person. He was walking and talking at 8 months old. During this time, furnaces would commonly have to be stoked by using a small amount of fuel oil.  His relative would keep a small amount of fuel oil in an opened soup can next to the furnace for that purpose. Joshua had decided to drink it. (I imagine he would jokingly say, way ahead of the curve huh?) Well, he immediately turned blue, was rushed to the hospital, but evaded Death's grasp once again.  The interesting part is that no one had spoken of this til he had mentioned it at the age of 4, remembering everything.

He spent his youth neglected and ignored by his family, except when there was a need for someone to blame.  His heart reached out, though, and saw none of it as neglect, but just the way things were.  His capability for forgiveness of crimes against his innocence astounds me every day.  When he was 5 years old he started working in the woods with his father, a logger and woodcutter, doing harder labor than most adult men will ever see in their lifetime.  But as a child he lifted, threw, and chopped wood with the endurance that adults couldn't handle, because he had to.


At the age of 8, a neighbor boy by the name of Tommy, lifted him up by the head, shaking him.  He jostled him around in this manner, kinking up Joshua's little neck and body.  It was the beginning of summer and he spent the rest of it in bed suffering from horrible migraines and sickness.  He still has migraines to this day.  He was never taken to a doctor or a hospital, but lived by his family's motto of walking it off.

During the winter of his 8th year, Joshua attended a youth group outing.  They were playing basketball in the gym when he and the youth pastor tripped over each other and fell to the ground.  Joshua got up laughing, as children do when such an incident occurs, but the pastor was enraged.  He took Joshua by the throat and threw him down a flight of stairs.  Afterwards picking him up, again by the throat, dragging him to another flight of stairs and throwing him down those.  The pastor picked up a dazed and confused Joshua and slammed him into a chair, bleeding, and told him that if he got out of the chair before he was given permission that the pastor would kill him.  Joshua's older sister, who was also at the event did nothing.  The pastor offered his sister to give them both a ride home, and on the way stopped at another patron of the church's house.  They stayed inside for three hours, while Joshua sat in the shut off car, while it was well below zero outside.  When he got home, and told his parents what had happened, because his face was black and blue, they told him they would go to the church deacons to report what had happened.  When the pastor came over the next day, Joshua's father asked him about the incident, and the pastor not only admitted to it, but said that he would do it again.  Nothing else was said about it for 20 years.  When a friend of the family brought up Joshua's name, the pastor wife replied, yes we had an incident with him before.  How tough this grown 30 something man must have felt nearly killing an 8 year old boy.


To be continued...