Personal Thought

We as people have many different moods. Changing from moment to moment. We must not censor ourselves, or be so easily offended. Sensitivity is a good thing.  It becomes great when it is used to benefit the hearts of others.  This is how we find balance. Without balance, we have not yet achieved responsibility.  Our responsibility to ourselves is to be responsible for others.  In today's world we have lost a sense of humor.  We have lost the ability to forgive or put ourselves in another man's shoes.  We pick and choose who is important to us and most of the time, this decision is based upon fear.  Many times in movies, fear is addressed as a good thing. I disagree.  It restricts us from natural growth.  Growth in our humanity.

 Through my health issues I have learned many things, first, I find myself in a place where I can not stand using the word things.  Yet, many times simplicity is better. To cause another man fear is to cause another man harm.  To live within fear ourselves we accomplish nothing.  Righteousness is an absolute gift, but just like everything else must be chosen.  And most importantly must be applied.  I have seen people who need validation and they achieve this by bullying, lying, deceiving, by trying to intimidate.  Many of these people come in the form of police officers and doctors.  They take an oath to save and protect lives.  But they hide behind the power that is given them to destroy.  To take away safety, to take away lives.  Most of the time, just because they can.

We live in the world of guilty before innocence.  I have experienced this many times and both my wife and I are, as of this moment.  We forget about the sayings that we were taught as children.  Two wrongs don't make a right.  Yet, we hold on to the ignorance of sayings such as where there's smoke there's fire. This is a world that I don't want to live in, but it is a world that I do. It is something that we as people, if we join together, have the ability to stop and change.  I have found the words and actions of others horrifying.  Is it really the strong that prey on the sick and weak? Or is it the weak that do so? My definition of becoming a man and growing as a man is to forgive those.

 But sometimes in life, as I believe no one has ever went a lifetime without experiencing this corruption.  We find ourselves living in fear without control or power.  Misinterpretation is one of the greatest tragedies of this world.

Take it as you will, but I will give you an example, as I will paraphrase.  As people, it is our responsibility to plant seeds. The person or persons we are doing this for, it is their responsibility to accept that gift, to tend to their crops, their heart their spirit, and to grow.  A misinterpretation: Tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye.  And simply as humans we decide to leave this as just that.  Yet that is not how the statement ends.  Again paraphrasing: A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, only a man that lives his life foolishly lives by this path.  Without it being taken in it's full context the message is lost as we manipulate whatever we want to achieve our own answers that benefit us and us alone.

As people we must remove fear from our lives.  To achieve this we must not put fear on another man or let them put it on us.  Today's world there are so many foundations that represent this same exact thing.  As we overlook the obvious and what is in the dark is left in the dark.  It is our responsibility to bring light to all of these problems.

I heard recently that they are choosing a woman to be on the ten dollar bill.  The uproar was quite chaotic.  Does it really matter? Is this really the affirmation or validation that we need? Does it change anything? How fickle we are.  My wife and I were talking about this.  Of course, it is obvious that women were not allowed to have a voice, but is that a choice?  When looking through history, is there a woman that had set themselves apart, that without their words and actions the world may be different than we know today, and of course I mean worse?  And my wife and I came to the conclusion of Rosa Parks.  A woman who did not live her life in fear.  And because of her, this generation's life and world is completely different, and proof that one simple action can change the world for the better for all generations to come.

At some point and time, no matter what our race, we are all minorities.  But what we do as human beings, when righteous, creates a majority.  Most of us have went through the exact same things as the person we may or may not know that is standing right next to us.  Yet somehow, through our rose colored glasses, we say we are different.  The only difference between us and the person standing next to us are the people along the way that change one of these person's life for the better. I am a fighter.  And no, I don't mean literally in violence.  I am a fighter of all things righteous.  I have been fighting for my life for over 15 years.  For some reason, my heart is still beating.  As I've said before, I doubt there are few people that can relate to what I have been through and what I am going through. But that does not mean it is unrelatable.

The word comprehension is lost. It is lost through ignorance.  It is lost through selfishness.  To comprehend is to understand. Do we even take the time to do this?  Do we live in ourself to understand only those things that reflect our lives, that affect our lives, that we are interested in? How could we not be interested in all aspects of humanity?

I have seen people be so jaded, but if hardship comes knocking on a person's door; we overlook as that hardship may have fallen on us just the day before.  Is there not enough time in this world?  Is that not what we were given? There is always enough time.  We find time for what we want, but can we find time for what others need?

A simple kind word.  A small gesture. That could turn into something so large and remarkable, that the snowball effect becomes unparalleled.  I have never found myself lost in the confusion of the difference between right and wrong.  But I have found myself confused by those who are lost in their ability to determine between right and wrong.

So I ask you to think of this: We always know the difference between right and wrong.  There is no gray area in this.  The only time we ever find a gray area is when it applies to us and us alone.  To an individual.  We become lost in he said she said.  We interfere in lives, involving ourself in something that we have no business doing so.  Yet, we idly stand by and watch the destruction of another man because it's none of our business.  This contradiction does not go overlooked.  It's just overpassed.  And to rephrase that we simply pass over.

Those who are sick that can not get medical treatment.  Those who are innocent of crime, but have no legal representation.  This world has been filled with title, fame and money, as the only result of this means to an end is safety.  Safety of physical persecution.  Many of the greatest men to ever walk this earth, had to endure trials and tribulations that we can not possibly fathom.  And many of them had not a dollar to their name.

So please do not take your health or freedom for granted.  Please help those that do not have the ability to get themselves out of a mess that someone else created for them.  An olive branch.  A helping hand.  In my 40 years on this planet, to say the least my life has been tragic.  I have seen the ugliness of this world, but more importantly the ugliness of man.  We often validate ourselves by the power and control that we hold over others.  This has nothing to do with fairness.  This has to do with righteousness or the lack thereof.

Soon I will be sharing a story that will make you understand exactly what I am saying.  A story about my life, about my wife's.  We do not live separate lives, it is our life.  This is something that we have chosen.  The responsibility of another is never overlooked.  Without responsibility, there can be no such thing as love.  It is a very overused word.  As the meaning behind it is determined by each individual.  It is used to make a person look or sound better. When the definition of love for a person is to just be better. It's the only thing that could drive you to do so.

So as I stated; I will be sharing a story shortly.  I have learned that my life unfolds, not just by my own choices, but by the choices of man; the purpose given to me by God.  My destiny that ultimately aligns me with another.  I have seen passiveness, aggressiveness, passive-aggressiveness.   But very seldom have I seen assertiveness, conviction.  We are our own worst enemy.  And in this case, the enemy of my enemy can not be my friend.  With my last question, not only to all of you, but to myself: when something happens so bad caused by man, how could another man help you?  Within this lies fear.  So of course, it comes down to simply God.

In our situation, I will do something openly that I have never done openly.  I have always believed my faith is enough.  But I am asking God to reach down and save myself and my family.  I have been a faithful servant of the Lord since I could remember.  I have believed in my healing; as without this my purpose would be lost and my existence would be in vain.  This is not a proclamation, this is an expectation.  Please do not lose faith in God or each other.  Believe me when I tell you, as I speak the truth, that there is always someone that is going through something that can not be comprehended.  But this is because of their lack of faith and discernment.  Not for God.  Not for other men, but within themselves.  Definition Ignorance.

Take Care and God Bless.


~Joshua Jet Vaughan~


Post Script: I have been called or deemed a warrior, a fighter, a man possessing infinite grace, patience, wisdom, conviction, forgiveness, sympathy, empathy, and I could go on.  I have had people call me an angel, metaphorically and literally.  All of these would be considered great.  All incredible virtues.  I am very hardened, very tough, I am what you would call old school.  A man's man.  We truly can not understand ourself, or others if we have not had a gift taken away.  If it is by our own doing, we still deserve compassion.  If it is by another man's, we deserve redemption.

Through my hardships, because of my health or lack thereof, in my heart, I have been treated with disrespect to that of a child.  Because my health issues are so prominent, I struggle with the battle to walk tall.  As simply, I am broken.  Many times in my life, people have referred to me as being insatiably nice/kind.  In my youth, I had an easier time expressing my appreciation to others and then I went through these unbelievable trials.  For some time I had lost that.  When I met my wife, I had learned or rather was taught, how to speak through my heart again.

I find men having a very difficult time showing appreciation to others in a proper manner, as somehow this can make a man feel less than, not only the man speaking, the man listening, creating a loss of comfort and becoming unresponsive, almost being ashamed.  To be a man, we must be open.  We must be confident.  We must walk softly and speak to others with generosity. My father is an example of the opposite of this.  He is degrading, temperamental, irresponsible.  My mother is the same.  Yet, these two people were the ones that taught me how to grow up and be a man.

I don't know if somewhere along the lines they lost their way, or they had just never found it, and to put it simply were faking it, based upon what they had seen their parents do.  My father is very degrading and disrespectful, very loud and obnoxious, very rude.  He cares nothing of anyone else.  Complains like an infant.  And anything that he does for you, even if not asked, he will hold over your head.  He is 62 years old, soon to be 63.  Because I have seen this, that is one of the realizations that has come upon me to understand that who we are is a choice.  To have dreams and goals, aspirations. To believe in a better future.  This allows us to look back in retrospect, reflect, to grow and change and to give humility, because humility is an incredible gift.

In today's world, speaking our heart is somehow considered feminine and weak. It is nothing of the sort. This stems from love and humility.  I speak of men specifically feeling uncomfortable with soft words.  When I was growing up, if you spoke softly to another male, you would be called gay, or a homo.  We don't use these words like we used to, but we feel just the same. But we must learn how to be all things to all men.  Maybe, just maybe, if we spoke more openly about our heart, through our heart, we could change this type of behavior.  There are so many contradictions.  A woman wants a sensitive man, but also a tough guy.  She wants to be spoken to in a lovely manner, with appreciation and respect.  Men want the same thing.

Compliments are not what I am talking about.  I have always taken compliments with a grain of salt.  They are usually only beneficial to the person speaking them.  But I believe we know the difference when we are paid a true compliment.  This is called discernment.

So it comes back to comprehension and accountability.  To be able to understand and comprehend a man's heart, to be able to speak accordingly, and be able to speak righteously or soundly without judgment or condemnation that we are lacking in our manhood.  If being a man means being shut off, unresponsive, vocalizing our feelings through anger, aggression, through intimidation, so we can feel better about ourselves; being loud has nothing to do with conviction.  No man speaks just one way.  He adapts to the people around him. Holding onto his own character, but understanding the individuals that he is talking to.

Politics is an example of this.  It is juvenile at best.  As I see the presidential candidates come about; they talk as if they know so much, yet they know nothing.  Giving false hope by phrasing their words, by adjusting their facial expressions, so that they can convince others to believe in them.  We all see through lies and ignorance.  Yet, we choose to overlook it and believe what is coming out of their mouth.  When we open up our hearts, we must open up our hearts to everyone.

Every man has an enemy, and every man is an enemy.  Yet, we were not born of this.  Speak softly, but with conviction.  Do your best to make people think, but allow them enough information to come to their own conclusion and make their own decision.  And lastly, let them know who you are through your words and actions that stem through the heart so we can know each other.  And to do this, there is only one way: to know who we are in Christ. Whether you are in a crisis of faith, or simply a crisis, the old saying, the old biblical verse, the hymn: I was lost, but now am found.  Even those who are found, many times become lost.  We must find out way back and help others to do just the same.



There can not be revolution without resolution.

Feel Free To Comment

If you have any ideas, if you would like to share, please feel free. If you would like to see posts of different nature on our page, please let us know as we embrace all aspects of life. From your hardships and tragedies, to your loves and joys. humor. Music. Movies. Plain and simple talk. We would love to hear what you have to say. Remember, everyone who sees this page is a part of it and will continue to be.  As our mission is to connect everyone. Everyone is special and important and of value. We can only do this together. So we will.

~GSET Team~

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...

Joshua's Joys

While Joshua's story is filled with tragedy, there have also been moments of great Joy.  During the next few weeks, while we post Joshua's story; we will also be posting short anecdotes about moments of joy in his life.  While the great tragedy makes his fight that much more inspirational, and his drive that much more motivational, Joshua believes that balance is key to life.  We shall provide you with the bits "Joshua's Joys." May it bring as much joy to your life as it has to him and to ours.

How to know what we don't know.

When I was a young boy living in the time where there was only 3 channels on a tube powered television, my imagination was left to it's own means.  In a manner of speaking, before I was corrupted, I always believed I could fly. How could this be? Where did this come from? I had never seen anybody fly. I had seen nothing of the sorts on television.  Yet, there it was. As I was talking about this to my wife, she replied "Because we were meant to fly."  My first reaction was, "Good point." My second was in the amazement of my wife's reply which brought me to discernment. What is discernment? It's really unexplainable.  The same applies to grace. I then started thinking about being a young boy and until I read the story of Jesus walking on water I had never thought about it.  Now why is that?

I was saved at the age of 8 years old. My bus driver at the time would offer to take us children to a local church after school. I had felt led to go. Though my mother was raised Catholic, my father and sister believers, this was not by their influence.  It was by my own choice.  Again, bringing me back to discernment.  After reading the story of Jesus, living about a hundred yards from a lake, I walked down to the water where there was a dock. At this time I had absolutely no doubt that I could walk on water.  Absolutely none.  That confidence and conviction I have yet to reach again.  At the last moment, there it was, doubt.    There was no fear involved.  There was a shoreline.  If I stepped off the dock, the water was only two feet.  The worst that could happen is that my clothes would get wet.

 Bringing me right back to discernment.  When I think about atheists I believe there are none.  I believe most of them are angry with God or people choose not to believe.  Which brings me back to the beginning of my story.  How did I know these things or feel this way?  Was it my imagination or was it discernment? A bit of a side track, on a funny note.  Why do people who feel like they can fly always feel the need to jump off something for instance a roof. Okay, back to reality. There is something called Ockham's razor.  This means  the simplest answer  in all probability is the correct one.  Stay with me, this is all adding up.  When the bible was written 12 men of faith were given many different scripts.  They were to go away in secrecy and come back on a specific date and time having to choose which of the scripts should be put in what we now know as the Holy Bible.  They all came back with the exact same books.   The writers of the bible, though are not questioned as to being real, they have been said to have made this up out of their own imagination.

 How and why?  The stories of the bible link so perfectly together that when taken out of context they may contradict themselves, but when read from start to finish they are in perfect alignment, so much so that the imagination could not have possibly created these words. And without discernment  there is no possible way that these individual men could have written stories on their own that would perfectly connect.  Understand? And as we all have seen the ugliness of human nature, why write stories  about men, other than themselves, about entities, about love, about God, about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit for the benefit of mankind, not for themselves.

So taking everything I've said from start to finish, from my childhood, from imagination, growing into a man, being corrupted, knowing things that should not be known from the beginning of my life.  Well, that is discernment.  It's not thought or instinct.  The interesting thing is that we all have discernment, but we still have to pray to understand it.

A couple of interesting facts.  I was watching a very famous man on television who said he has been blessed his entire life.  Interesting enough to me that he used the word blessed, not lucky. Continuing on, he had stated that because of the horrible things in the world, though he wants to believe in God, he can't.  What? That makes no sense at all.  When I listen to atheists, they spend a lot of time complaining and trying to disprove  someone and something they don't believe in. I don't believe in Santa Clause, but I don't feel the need to spend my time trying to disprove it to others.

The interesting part is, why are the most blessed, the ones who don't believe the most?  An atheist would say well when you're suffering you need something to grasp or hold onto. Well, when I was a boy I was not suffering nor ill.  I had no fear. I could never understand how people didn't believe.  Though I have had my moments of questioning.  So I ask you this, how many times in your life have you seen a person do something for someone else without having personal gain?  Why would a group of men get together and write such an elaborate story for the betterment of mankind?

When in human nature have you ever seen that done? There's so many points that I could bring up, my wife would be typing for hours.  So how do we know what we don't know? Because discernment tells us that we don't know it, which makes us want to. But remember, it is a gift. A gift that we have already been given, but may have never unwrapped and opened.  Some may be asking, well Joshua, there are people who do that today.  The simple answer to that is that we have a point of reference. We have the bible. A study guide, if you will, to look in to help give us answers to our questions.  So I ask you this, what other book, what other writing or script can you do this with? Because it was written and given to us and for us and knowing that, my friends, is the example of true discernment.


~Joshua Jet Vaughan~