A Heart of Gold

By Gary A. House

I truly believe that we are all born with a heart of gold.  With proper spiritual nurturing and guidance, that golden heart grows over time.

I, like many others, have been following the medical journey of Harnett County’s 12 year-old Ellen Whittington’s battle with auto immune encephalitis for nine months on FaceBook.

One 11 year-old girl from Greensboro, Cienna Joyce, has also been following Ellen’s progress even though she has never met Ellen.

Cienna had a birthday not long ago.  During the planning stages of her birthday party, Cienna informed her parents, Kim and Sonya Joyce, that she wanted to have a birthday party but she wanted no gifts for herself.    She claimed that she had everything that she needed.  From that golden heart that has been growing for 11 years, she asked if the guests could bring donations to be sent to The Ellen Fund. She felt that she needed to help Ellen more than she needed gifts for herself.

While on a business trip, Brian Whittington, Ellen’s father, crossed paths with Mrs. Joyce and was told of Cienna’s request to help Ellen instead of having a traditional birthday party.  Mrs. Joyce then handed Mr. Whittington an envelope with a donation to The Ellen Fund.

I have never met the Joyce family but I believe that there is an abundance of spiritual nurturing and guidance in the Joyce household.  They are raising a daughter that is and is destined to be a great, compassionate human being.

The world would be a much better place if those hearts of gold with which we were born grew larger each year like Cienna’s golden heart.  I often talk about the inherent goodness of humankind and

Cienna’s actions prove my theory to be correct. 

For some unknown reason, it appears as if our hearts of gold often get smaller as we get older.  The causes may be more responsibility, less time, more self-centeredness, or social and economic environments.  Whatever the reason, we must teach our hearts to grow like Cienna’s has grown.

In Matthew 18:2-4, Jesus called a little child and had him stand among the disciples and said “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

We should take a good look at ourselves and be grateful for what we have.  We also need to be cognizant of the needs of others and open our hearts like Cienna did for Ellen.

Would not the world be a wonderful place if everyone walked around with golden hearts?

I would personally like to thank Cienna for helping me and others reprioritize our lives and making our hearts grow again.  May we all strive to have hearts of gold like Cienna.

Children Deserve Respect

By: Gary A. House

Over the years I have spent thousands of hours with the youth in our county coaching various youth league sports.  I have learned a lot about children and parents during that time.

Perhaps the most important thing I have learned is that each child is different.  They are motivated in different ways.  They react in different ways to the same stimuli.  You cannot put each child in the same mold and coach them the same way.

All children should be treated equal but some are far more sensitive than others.  A coach must be careful in how he presents himself at all times.  Our children always deserve to be treated with respect.  I realize that no coach is going to be perfect and mistakes will be made.  But it takes a man to realize when he has been too tough on a child or has not demonstrated good sportsmanship himself.

Yelling at children and being overbearing will incorrectly teach our children how to treat people who are weaker than they are.  It will resonate for years and get passed on for generations.  This coaching method is not acceptable in our community if we want to have a good quality of life here.

I witnessed this method from one of my son’s three football coaches this year.  It became worse as the season went along.  In the final game of the season, I witnessed increased yelling with an increased decibel level, constant ridiculing of players’ performances, and shaking a child by the facemask.  Toward the end of the game, a table on the sidelines was kicked over by the coach as he uttered some poorly chosen words.  

I played football throughout school, have coached on the recreation level, and am a frequent attendee at local high school football games.  I have never witnessed the level of actions I saw during my son’s last game.

I know my son puts forth everything he has on the field and I know most of the other players put forth the same effort even though their abilities may not all be the same.

Every player that puts on that uniform should be encouraged in a positive way.  They should not be ridiculed or yelled at.  They should be lifted up and be made to feel good about themselves.

As a coach, I have always tried to learn the child’s personality and encourage him/her in a way that he/she feels comfortable.  I strongly believe in this method.  I still have friendships with players I coached twenty-two years ago.  I never yelled at one of them and we won more than our fair share of games.

The most precious things we have in our lives are our kids.  We need to prepare them to be leaders of the next generation.  Lessons learned on the ball fields will be taken with them as they journey through life.

It is imperative that we provide our children with good role models. 

Our children are our future.  We have to put them in good hands.