About-Face!

The campers in Eager Beaver cabin were all homesick. Each one thought he was the only one feeling that way, so none of them would admit to the others that he was homesick. This made it worse.

Pretty soon they began to do things they would not ordinarily have done to cover up their feelings. The five larger boys began to pick on the smallest one in the group. Every time the little fellow would open his mouth to say something the others would "razz" him. They made fun of his handwork. They hid his soap and towel and put his shoes outside at night so that they would get soaked with rain or dew. They wanted to make someone more miserable than themselves.

Now these boys were not naturally cruel. Their own misery made them do things they wouldn't usually do. And the more they picked on the little fellow the more they wanted to. So one night at bedtime their cabin counselor who knew what was troubling them read a passage from Paul's letter to the Romans for their devotions: ". . . be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds" (Romans 12:2) .

At first the boys didn't get it. So the counselor explained that sometimes we fall into ways that we can't get out of very easily. He explained that sometimes we just have to make ourselves stop and turn back toward the right road. "It's like an 'about-facer," he said.

The boys got the idea, but one of them had to say, "Knock it off," the next day when they began to pick on the little one. He knew that he had to renew his mind or change his way of thinking. Soon they all felt better.

Give me the courage to do an about-face, 0 God, when I find myself in the wrong.