Courage is.....

What is courage?  I read on sign just a few weeks ago at the Hoosier Horse Fair that courage is being scared to death....but saddling up anyways.  A great quote, one that will hang in the barn from now on.  Courage isn't being all tough and acting like nothing phases you.  What I learned this week was that courage is being scared to death.....but doing the right thing anyways, even at risk of personal harm or knowing that it's not going to end up well.  While I can't go into all that happened and let the internet world know about it, there was a situation this week where I had to confront someone to leave the premises, someone I knew would not take it well, but it had to be done for the good of all, for the good of camp.  The easy thing to do would have been to not confront, to look the other way, to avoid what I knew was going to be painful.  But I knew I couldn't and I knew I had to do what I didn't want to do.  And that's courage.  Once the appropriate people showed up and I was done talking to who I needed to talk to about it, then emotion took over.  I'll admit that a lot of emotion took over.  I realized how scared I'd been.  How scared I still was.  How much verbal abuse I'd taken and how threatening the person was and realized that this person knew exactly where I lived.  It took a long time to settle back down and I certainly did not feel like a courageous person at that point.  But everyone told me that I had done exactly what need to be done and I took solace in that fact.  I'm not boasting of what I did.  I don't think there's anything to be proud of.  I did what needed to be done and while it's not an experience I ever want to go through again, I'm glad to know that I have people in my life who will come and standby me.  As one told me afterwards, "You mess with one, you mess with all."  :-)  That's my family, my camp family.