A true middle-school memory that still preaches Philippians 4:6-7 to my grown-up heart
Gym class in fifth grade was supposed to be harmless fun—until my number was paired with “that” kid, the one who’d been left back a few times and looked more linebacker than classmate. Compared to the skinniest boy in the class. Yet each time the whistle blew I rocketed to the flag, beat him to it, and scored for my team. Victory felt sweet … until the walk back to class.
The teacher turned the corner up the stairwell, the guys filed in right behind him, and suddenly I felt what I thought was 200 pounds of rage slam me to the tile. Fists flew. My skinny arms did their best impression of a shield while the hallway emptied—every guy kept moving as if hallway brawls were on the syllabus.
Then a shadow covered us. I braced for the final blow, thinking it was the angel of death—only to realize the shadow had ponytails.
Every single girl in our class had sprinted back, pulled the bully off me, and pinned him to the floor. My rescuers weren’t the strong guys I expected. They were the girls I hadn’t even noticed were gone.
Hope showed up—but not on my timetable and not in my preferred package.
| Lesson | What happened | Heart takeaway |
| 1. God’s timing beats my timeline | Rescue didn’t appear until I was on the floor. | Divine help often arrives at what feels like the last second, but heaven is never late. |
| 2. God’s methods might surprise you | I expected a male cavalry; God sent the cheer squad. | Don’t box God in. If you’re fixated on how He must help, you’ll miss the help He is sending. |
| 3. Don’t shrink back from the challenge | I could’ve let the bully win to avoid conflict. | When God calls you into a contest, play to win and trust Him with the fallout. He’ll handle the bullies—and the bruises. |
After that hallway royal rumble I learned another lesson: fear’s alarm clock is really a call to prayer. The apostle Paul said it this way:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” —Phil. 4:6-7
Dr. Tony Evans unpacks the antidote to worry better than I ever could:
*“Every time we begin to worry, we should see that as a call from God telling us it’s time to pray … The more you worry, the less you pray. The more you pray, the less you worry.”*¹
He goes on to say that peace is God’s built-in security detail—sentries stationed around your heart and mind even before the circumstances change. That’s precisely what I felt once the girls dragged the bully off me: a calm that made no sense except that God had answered a prayer I never even had time to voice out loud.
The bully never bothered me again. Maybe he respected the girls, or maybe he saw that I wasn’t alone. Either way, God turned a hallway ambush into a lifelong parable:
Help will come—in God’s time, by God’s means, for God’s glory.
If worry starts whispering today, let Tony Evans’s echo remind you: It’s time to pray. Peace is already en route, and rescue may be just around the corner—ponytails and all.
¹ Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (Holman, 2019), pp. 1245-1246.