Joshua's Joys

Leaning on his cousin Perry's boat at just 12 years old.  At this age, Joshua had started helping others trying to raise money for St. Jude's.  He walked for miles from home to home, knocking on doors asking for donations.  There were two ways to donate, one was a simple lump sum of money, and the other was to donate a certain amount of money for each mile ridden on his bike.  Every person that had donated to Joshua for St. Judes, donated the amount to the miles ridden.  Because the amount was so little from each person, for each mile, Joshua decided to ride his bike 51 miles.  While others who had gotten large amounts of money and would ride 7-8 miles and then sat for the rest of the day, Joshua pedaled his one gear bicycle, again, 51 miles, raising thousands of dollars for St. Jude's.  

The Story of Joshua

As we embark on this journey of the telling of The Story of Joshua we will be adding in stories from his current day. His struggles throughout childhood and as he grew up are numerous, but the real inspiration comes from the fight that he continues to make today to stay alive.  Please come with us on this journey of hell and tribulation and support this wonderful man and his vision to make sure everyone has a voice, especially those who can't speak for themselves.




~~~~~~~~
At the age of 34, Joshua hit a point of remission.  He had spent 3 and a half years alone n a house, with no medical treatment, undergoing pain and sickness that can't even be imagined.  It seemed that after such a long torturous time, overnight something changed. He immediately fought himself up to begin rehabilitating himself, having always pushed himself to be the best possible person, physically, mentally, compassionately and spiritually that he could be.  He wasn't back to 100%.  In fact, he was only at about 30% of health.  But he took the little mercy he was given and had no doubt that he would do everything with it that he could.

Joshua always fought to rebuild his body
 even during chemotherapy treatment

He went to the gym to begin building his body back.  The first several days he was only able to walk on a treadmill for 15 minutes.  Then he would sit in the sauna to try to ease the excruciating pain that it had caused.  Slowly, he worked his body back, walking, stretching, lifting.  Doing anything and everything to gain back as much of his strength as possible.  He had already lost a third of his life to sickness and torture, he wasn't going to let a second of wasted time go by that he had.  He worked himself up to working out 5 and a half hours a day, eating ten times a day.  He fought to finish everything he had begun; fine-tuning his screenplay (that had already been purchased), recording his album (signed to be released by a major record label), fine-tuning his voice, getting back everything he had lost and had been taken from him.






The thought of what this man has done in his sickness, imagining the greatness that he could achieve in his health.  He has battled through life-threatening illnesses for years, losing inches off of his height from his spine being crushed in a car accident that no man should have lived through (detailed story to come) dropping down from 6'3'' and 285lbs  with a 34" waist, losing 85lbs after throwing up so violently that it tore his stomach muscles leaving his abdomen herniated.  He had fought to go to the chiropractor every day for a year, seeing a doctor once a week, flying back and forth all over the world, and then no hope. Nothing. The car accident with absolutely no treatment; being released from the hospital within 12 hours.  Having been clinically dead for 2 hours before being resuscitated and lying in a coma for 40 days before waking, and being discharged the very next day(detailed story to come.




In spite of the hells he's been through he fought. Fought to regain his strength. Fought to regain his body. Fought to regain his health. Fought to regain and refine his musical gifts that are so far beyond anything that has ever been heard or heard of. Music being the only true international language. Connecting the world. Changing the world. Everything that has been taken from him he has fought to reclaim so that he could play his music, share his life, use them to help those who have no voice for himself. His mission. His purpose. His calling. He fought. The true seventh son (detailed story to come), the last warrior, Joshua.



But remission did not last long.  His health went bad again quickly to where he is the sickest he has ever been for the longest period of time.  It's a strength that no man should ever have to have.  It can not be experienced. It can not be learned.

He has lived his life believing that you are always worth something as is everyone.  Never better, nor worse just wonderful people.  That we are all special and all have a purpose that is greater than ourself, but also allows us to live our life in joy.  Always believing that happiness is an emotion based upon a reaction to something, but joy is a condition of the spirit. Where we can truly be proud and not prideful.  Live our life with conviction in love.   Achieving success and greatness. Wanting, needing and helping every other person to have the same.  Waiting for those surgeries or waiting for that day that God decides to heal him. Confused as to why it hasn't happened yet and why he has so many gifts, and worked so hard to refine them while battling illness and circumstances, reaching the point of torture that would have toppled any other man,  hasn't been able to use them, with a heart that lies only in love.

Joshua has an understanding of human nature.  Allowing him to forgive. Allowing him to forget.  The pains that have been inflicted upon him by others, but yet never truly understanding the ability to hurt or destroy. Always giving the benefit of the doubt. Always believing the best in a person. And wanting to see them live their life righteously by accepting their flaws and accepting others' through truth of discernment and again through a heart filled with love that has no room for hate.   One of the most important things he always says is to be honest.  No matter how bad the truth is, it's always better than the best lie.  Allowing everyone to know where they stand.  Giving everyone the ability to accept each other.  And knowing that the one thing that comes out of this is trust from the love that we all have in our heart.  For we all have the same spirit. Therefore we live in one heart.  One love.

He never has any arrogance, because he's always trying to better himself through the world and for the world but never being of this world, no matter what he is going through, no matter how restricted or limited, always with a heart for others.


(On a side note:  To understand a little bit more about Joshua, so sick  that many times he can not even stand, eat for days, sleep peacefully, for his day is filled with sufferings and they never stop. And every night collapsing from pure sickness and exhaustion.  Spending time, even on social media, wanting to talk and reply, thinking and listening of everyone and will put off his starvation and dehydration and his pain to do just that for he is always a man of his word.  Many times having to be dragged away from the computer so he can nourish his body and try to rest. Trying to pick up his guitar when he can barely move his hands to finish what he has started because of what his music has to say. Not being able to use his beautiful, powerful voice. What our team wanted to add is to explain why he has not been able to get his surgeries, life saving surgeries, as of now, just one of the many reasons is he has been treated so badly by the medical community that his survival rate of living through these surgeries is just a few percent. Having trouble finding any physician that will do this because of the liability. All of this has allowed him to be able to relate to all pain and all sickness. All sufferings. Though he has always had a tremendous heart, the pain he feels for others stays with him day and night. And how he wants to do so much  of course for himself and his family, but for everyone. He is not infallible. He sees people in this world taking for granted their blessings, manipulating and using others for personal gain.  Causing frustration and even anger for him. But always uplifting us all with a smile or a comment or a gesture, making joy and love the priority. The Truth.  Though we believe what he has gone through and what he is going through no man ever has, we all know that there are people out there that are suffering that truly need help.  And there are many people that are out there that have the ability to do so, but don't.  Whether he gets better and is out in the open for the world to see, or he dies, this will not detour us from his purpose that is now our purpose.  What a tragedy to not see this man get better and enjoy the gifts that he has been given as we have stated earlier that no one has ever heard the likes of. And not to be able to help others reveal, live their gifts and the beauty that each person holds.

Additionally; because some of the work that he has done he had attended several award shows. Putting on his smile, uplifting others, while going through incredible pain.  As he had given his word that he would be there as he has so missed his colleagues and many friends.  Taking whatever opportunity he has to keep growing  and embracing whatever joys there are.  Joshua is not well known through out the world as what we call celebrity due mainly to his life of illness.  Though his family is and always has been, yet he has had to work for everything on his own.  His family deriving from selfishness, which has allowed him to be selfless and have self-worth.  He is what many call a behind the scenes man.  Fame is something that he never wanted.  Just health and the ability to love and be loved unconditionally.  Though now it is something that he wants and embraces.  As he is always honest, he would want us to say that it is for himself as well as others.  He wants to shine. The most amazing voice, so powerful, playing the guitar like no other with such passion and intensity, writing songs, embracing every human emotion.  But as for the several people on our team, we can state truthfully with no doubt that the biggest reason for wanting this is how he has come to realize that he can help every person.  He has never doubted his purpose.  He is a man of such wisdom, vision and strength and never lacking in conviction or grace; that in his heart he knows that he can help change the lives of every person on this planet for the better, even if it's one person at a time and takes him his entire life.  A leader among leaders.  And when you read this, understand, we all can do this. It only takes one person to start.  Living by these three mottos: Your words and your actions are only as good as the heart behind them.  That if you are selfless, there is no need to be selfish for we are all getting and giving, and understanding that to lead we must follow and to follow we must lead.  These three simple things will change the world. It all starts and ends with one thing: love.)


to be continued...

The Story of Joshua~Chapter 2

       At the age of 12, the neighbors took Joshua out tubing with them.  When it was his turn, the father took off going 60mph in their speed boat and proceeded to whip from side to side trying to dislodge Joshua from the tube.  He finally could hold on no longer.  The speed and force  of over 90mph was so great that Joshua bounced off the surface of the water three times before it finally broke and allowed his broken body to sink through.  There wasn't a place on his body that wasn't black and bruised from this event.  He received no medical help, and not even an offer to take him to the doctor from his family, but spent the rest of that summer trying to recover as well.


        Later that fall, he was riding his motorbike through the woods.  The same bully came out of nowhere and to avoid hitting the boy, Joshua swerved, hit a stone and went flying through the air to land on a boulder on his knees.  Cut open and in a great deal of pain, he gathered his bike and forced himself to walk home.  When he got there and he told his parents what had happened, his father told him to go walk it off.  So, trusting in them, he did.  He began walking up and down the street.  Limping at first, but then a warm euphoria came over his body.  By the time he was finished walking, thou still bleeding and bruised, the pain in his leg was completely gone.

Joshua and his cousin Jaren

       One night in the spring of '87 when Joshua was 13 years old, he came home from basketball practice.  The school was only a mile away, and having not been able to get a hold of his family, he walked home.  It was about 10 o'clock at night by the time he got back and completely dark.  There were no lights on at his home, and the doors were locked.  He tried to open all of the windows and was unable to.  It was still early spring, and so the night was very cold.  He sat outside shivering in his basketball shorts and t-shirt.  Remember that this was before the time of cell phones, he had no one to contact and no where to go.  So there he sat for five hours.  His parents drove up with his sister around 3:00 am to a shivering blue faced Joshua.  Nothing was said to him, no apology or explanation, they simply went inside the house and went to bed, leaving Joshua to find something to eat, because he hadn't eaten such lunch at school the day before, and go to bed cold and alone.

The Story of Joshua~ Soon to Come

The songs Joshua was playing during these pics word for word, note for note. Perfectly

Joshua was blessed enough to find a band of seasoned musicians to play with a kid who had just been playng the guitar for a year. Though Joshua was considered a prodigy, he says he never would have developed wthout these great men that were put in his path. Taking every gig he could, from 500 people to 1.5 million people. Even after going through leukemia and many bouts of chemotherapy.

Unfortunately, then this happened. Story in detail to follow. As they say a picture tells a thousand words, but in this case you will be shocked to find out what happened as he was left to die by the medical community.

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...

The Story of Joshua~Detailed story of the Tubing Incident

Example of a 185 hsp Engine Bass Boat

The summer of Joshua's 12th year, he was invited to go tubing with a neighbor family. They had just bought a new boat, a 185 hsp Engine bass boat. They went out on the lake and were taking turns tubing.  When it was Joshua's turn, they took off at the top speed, 60 miles per hour.  The water hit him roughly but still this little man managed to hold on.  Then they began spinning the boat, which could turn on a dime.  The force of the speed combined with the velocity of the turn created a speed of 90 mph on the tube for young Joshua. He gripped the tube with all of his might, but finally could hold on no longer.  As he flew into the air, his body hit the water so hard and fast that the water did not break. He bounced off the surface of the water, once, twice, three times: all the while, inside, he was screaming for God to save him from the pain as his body was thrown against the water like it was concrete. Finally, the water broke, mercifully allowing him to slip beneath.  He was so battered that the family driving had to drag his broken body from the water.

The family had cared nothing of him, and using all the strength he had, he was forced to walk home. No one amongst the hundreds of 4th of July celebrators noticed this broken young man struggling to make his way home, struggling to breathe, suffering from injuries that no young body could handle.

As his yard and both homes were filled with campers, tents and all bedrooms were taken; he immediately went into his parents bed to lay down.  Several hours had passed before it was even noticed that he was not amongst all the family and friends.

As they were partying and having a good time, until around 4 am where finally his parents came in and reclaimed their bedroom. As his bedroom was taken up by relatives, he was forced to sleep on the floor, as people would come in and out of the home all hours of the day and night to use the rest room and to grab food. Where daily he would return to his parents bed.

No attention was given to him at all. Though at this time, praying, shedding a tear was not a possibility for it was not accepted. At this age, he was considered to be a grown man. And to suck it up.

And though knowing that this was not right, he had entrusted his family for knowing what was best. This, with many more tragedies has affected his health for years to come up until this very moment and continuing. One of the characteristics that he has stood by with conviction comes from incidences like this. To never ignore, to never take for granted, to always keep your word, to be trustworthy, to always speak the truth and back it up with your actions. Giving him an understanding of human nature, yet a confusion that still lies in his heart today.

 Just one of the many stories that has made him who he is. Always allowing and embracing the weight of the world on his shoulders.  Though he wants to live, fulfill his dreams and goals; he has understood that one of his purposes in life, no matter what he is going through is to be there for someone when no one else will. No matter what the cost. This is not just to tell you about his pain, his sufferings, but as you will see in the end result that no matter what you go through; there is a purpose bigger than yourself. The potential, the dreams and goals of others that have not been met, because of illness. Because of our own selves, because of others.  Our needs met and changed. Standing on one foundation. That foundation is love.

The Story of Joshua~Additions and Extended Details

As we publish The Story of Joshua there will be additions and extension versions of some of the smaller anecdotes that will be added later.  There has been so much tragedy in this man's life that those of us at The Greatest Stories Ever Told team are still in shock and awe of this great man that has risen from so much pain and triumphed and fought to live where no other man would.  The inspiration of his vision and his heart carries us all.

We will also be adding pictures to his story.  Though many pictures were taken of the rest of his family, very few were taken of Joshua in his youth and throughout his life.  These rare peeks into the life of this great man, whom we all here admire; we are sure will draw you even further into the remarkable story of his journey.  We hope that you are as touched and inspired as all of us on the GSET team are.

We are hoping that by the time his story reaches current day that he is healthy enough so that when his album and movie come out that it will bring more attention to this page so that when the stories of many others are released the world can hear and feel them and we can all start helping those who are in need and together change the world.  Starting with one story and one heart. Healing one heart at a time, until everyone is heard, and everyone is helped. And no one is crying out anymore. We can do this.