Being short in a tall world
In a world where everyone is fighting to be noticed we are recognising the plight of the short man! Ed Newton lets us in on life from his view point. Ahh, bless!
In 2004 Natasha Bedingfield wrote and sang the hit “Size Matters”. Oh dear! This spelt bad news for me. I was 19 at the time and stood a full 5 foot 6 inches tall. At school, my best friend dwarfed me. He was 6 foot 7. We even entered and won a table football tournament with the name “Little and Large”. Things were little better at home. My cousins regularly visited and all three of them were over 6 feet tall, including Jack, my thirteen year old cousin!
Labelled Up and Ready
When I was fifteen, I went on an outdoor adventure holiday in the Lake District with about 40 others of my age. We all arrived and unpacked our stuff. To my horror, as I unpacked in front of a group of people I’d never met before, I discovered that my brother, Tim had labelled all of my clothes. I pulled out my socks, nicely labelled, and then my pants, labelled “pants”, just in case I should forget. Thanks bro!
I’ve discovered that in life, people love to stamp a label on us. People love to put us in a box and then put their foot firmly on it. The label might be linked to your job, car, weight, shape or height.
No surprises for me! At school, I got my label, I was Ed, “you know the short one”. I got bullied for it, but often couldn’t see who’d made the comment through the crowd of people near me.
Cut the itchy and irritating labels off!
I love to cook. Lasagnes, curries, roasts. I love ‘em. But often there’s those times when you’ve got to do a quick turnaround. You’re in and out the house in 15 minutes and in that time you’ve got to shower, iron a shirt, change, feed the dog, yourself and check the sport. When that’s the case, you can’t beat a can of spaghetti hoops on toast. I don’t know about you, but I often find I’ve ripped the label off the tin, scrunched it into a ball and kicked it as far as I can across the room without even a thought.
When I started at Sheffield University in 2002, I discovered that it was time to scrunch up the labels I’d been given. Sure I was still short, but I realised I didn’t have to let what others said about me define me. It didn’t matter what label others put on me, what really defined me was how I saw myself.
Size Matters!
In 1953 Sir Edmund Hillary became the first man to climb Mount Everest. Had Sir Edmund Hillary listened to those around him, he would never have attempted to summit Everest. People had said it was not possible, he’d failed to climb a much smaller peak the year before and he was just the bee keeper from a small town in New Zealand, who got average marks at school. But he chose to believe in himself and throw off the label others had tried to stamp him with.
I’ve come to realise that Natasha was right. Size does matter! Not your height or weight, but how you view yourself. Since becoming a Christian at university, I’ve discovered that I am God’s masterpiece. This has given me a confidence. We’ve all heard it said that “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me”. What a load of rubbish! Some things our parents, teachers and friends said to us when we were children still stick with us, but I’ve found that as we discover that we are loved by God, it’s easier for us to let those words flow off us like water off a duck’s back.
.