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Popular by<br />
Kenny Vaughan<br />
It was 1977. I was a fifth grader and a pretty good<br />
athlete. Baseball was my favorite sport; in fact, I had<br />
made all-stars every year since five pitch. By accident,<br />
I discovered that I was good at track too. The junior<br />
high school track coach came over to the elementary<br />
school one day looking for two kids to run on the jr.<br />
high track team. The whole school ran 100-yard<br />
dashes to determine who would run with the older<br />
kids. By the end of the week, I found myself on the<br />
jr. high track team.<br />
All of a sudden, I went from just another kid in<br />
school, to a kid almost everyone knew about. Even the<br />
junior high kids knew that I was fast. Talk about a confidence<br />
boost! Over the next two years, I grew in popularity.<br />
I was in the “in crowd” and sitting at the<br />
“who’s who” table with all of the other popular kids.<br />
But then came puberty. It happened in the eighth<br />
grade. It seemed everyone in school hit their growth<br />
spurt except for me. All around me, voices deepened<br />
and facial hair sprouted, but I<br />
stayed a child. In the ninth<br />
grade, I measured a whopping<br />
4 foot 10 inches tall. All<br />
of a sudden, these “men”<br />
Kenny Vaughan is<br />
Founder of Athletes for<br />
Christ and creator of<br />
Shields of Strength.<br />
shieldsofstrength.com<br />
didn’t want the little boy around. My friends who normally<br />
saved me a seat at lunch were now sending me<br />
away with the excuse, "Someone is sitting there".<br />
I started eating alone to avoid the embarrassment<br />
of having them send me away, only to pull up an<br />
extra chair for someone else. As I look back, I don’t<br />
think that they were trying to be mean; they were<br />
just trying to protect their image. To top off this<br />
rejection, my small frame hindered me from excelling<br />
in the sports that I had always loved and dominated.<br />
Imagine going from the best kid in the league, to a<br />
kid who didn’t even make the baseball team in ninth<br />
grade. I was pretty heart broken.<br />
One day as I sat alone, I began to notice<br />
something that I had never noticed before… other<br />
kids were sitting alone at lunch too. Rather than sit<br />
by myself, I began to join them and I realized they<br />
were really nice kids. What shocked me the most was<br />
how they viewed my old friends. They saw the<br />
popular kids as confident, strong, and courageous. If<br />
only they knew the “real” kids behind the masks.<br />
What bothered me the most was how I had<br />
ignored these kids for years out of selfishness; I had<br />
never thought about them because I was too busy<br />
thinking about myself. I also struggled with realizing<br />
how much value I had placed on myself because of<br />
my performance.<br />
Well by eleventh grade I finally grew (not much as<br />
I'm still only 5' 5"), but I was finally taller than the<br />
shortest girl in school! I was also beginning to<br />
excel in water skiing, which of course got me<br />
an invitation back to the “cool” table. Only<br />
thing was… I really didn't want to sit<br />
there anymore. I had made new friends,<br />
friends who had accepted me for me,<br />
not because of my performances.<br />
I learned so much in high school, probably the<br />
most valuable life lessons I could have ever learned.<br />
I learned that everyone has value and that value isn’t<br />
based on his or her performances. I also learned how<br />
important it is to make sure people know that they<br />
have value. Coach Lewis taught me this lesson.<br />
Everyday when I walked past his room, he would call<br />
out my name. To this day I don’t know why, but boy<br />
did it make me feel good to be acknowledged. Sometimes,<br />
I would walk all the way around the school<br />
just to pass his room before going to my next class,<br />
which was right next-door! He encouraged me every<br />
single day through a simple greeting. I’ve always<br />
tried to do the same. I do my best to listen as intently<br />
to a guy living on the street, as I do a General Officer<br />
at the Pentagon.<br />
Acts 10:34 says that God does not show<br />
favoritism; He isn’t a respecter of persons. He loves<br />
us all the same, whether we sit at the popular table<br />
or not. We all have value to Him, so much so that He<br />
sent His most precious possession (His Son) to die<br />
for us all. He allowed Himself to be nailed to a cross<br />
for you and for me based on His love for us, not our<br />
performances. Get that truth in your heart and it will<br />
change everything!<br />
Jesus is the perfect example for us to follow in all<br />
areas of our lives, but especially in relationships with<br />
people. He gave His all for us, regardless of who they<br />
were and what they had done. We often hold back<br />
because of fear; fear of what other’s may think and<br />
fear of what it may cost us. Perfect love casts out all<br />
fear (I John 4:18). Lay those fears aside and believe<br />
enough in your own value to make a sacrifice for<br />
someone else no matter how much it cost. In that<br />
place of sacrifice, you will truly find life, joy, peace,<br />
and worth. v<br />
www.championsheart.org 29
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