Josh, the Young Paladin

Last night, I typed the word "dragon" into the search bar on LDS.org, hoping to find a list of scriptures in which dragons are mentioned. What I found first was even better. The top results were two articles and a poem from three issues of the Friend magazine. The top result of those three was a story called Josh and the Dragon.

The story begins with Josh, a kindred spirit of mine, who, having just finished a meal at a restaurant, begins to climb on a play structure with his younger brother and sister. Josh pretended that he was a knight, his sister, Anna, pretended to be a princess, and his brother, Brian, pretended to be a dragon. Playing knights and dragons on a play structure sounds like a lot of fun, and I'm sure it was, until the other children showed up.

The other children were nice enough, but they used language that children shouldn't use, or even hear. Summoning up his courage, Josh asked the other kids to stop using that kind of language around him and his brother and sister, but they didn't stop. He said a silent prayer prayer for guidance, and in his mind, he saw himself as a knight fighting a dragon, with his brother and sister standing behind him. At that moment, Josh knew that he had a duty to protect his younger siblings from hearing the foul language, so he led them away.

When the three of them rejoined their parents, their father asked them why they were back so soon. Josh explained what had happened,  and his father told him that he was proud of him for protecting his brother and sister and setting a good example for them.

Josh smiled. It was almost like he really was a knight watching over those he loved while fighting a dragon. Josh also knew he’d done more than protect his brother and sister—he had also protected himself.

I, too, am proud of Josh for his courage in making that decision. It's nice to know that there are other people in the church that are inspired to righteousness by the thought of being a knight. I had always thought that I was a little bit crazy for choosing paladins as my role-models, and maybe I am a bit old for playing pretend, but at least there's at least one church-published article that suggests that I chose a good example to follow. Judging by his thoughts and actions, I'd say that Josh was a paladin. I'm glad I'm not the only one.