Courage Boys, a new segment on The Glenn Beck Program, features stories to inspire and leave you feeling hopeful. In this age of social media and unprecedented access and sharing, it’s easy to feel insignificant and under attack — like you can’t make a difference. But the truth is you can — we all can.
By sharing stories of courage and strength, we can use the technology at our fingertips to spread encouragement and confidence. Making a difference is not only possible, but something we’re all capable of accomplishing.
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Wearing Armor
Imagine the look on French soldiers' faces when their new general rode into camp — and he turned out to be a 12-year-old girl. Her armor perfectly fit her little body. Her name was Joan.
The soldiers gathered and listened because the prince had said so — and they were about to lose the war. A little girl that claimed a visit from angels seemed as logical as anything else they'd tried.
Speaking to them from horseback, young Joan urged the soldiers to turn to the Lord. She also ordered away the women of the street who gave comfort to the men after battle. "They must go," she said. She then led the men to confession.
Under Joan's leadership, the army quickly gained power and men, too. All the men loved their little shepherdess. She always rode in front to battle and never carried a weapon. Eventually, her army broke the English back. All was well, and she was about to return home to her mom and dad.
But then, the English captured Joan, who was a now a teenager. They put her in a men's prison under the care of the most vile guards. The guards in prison tried to take from her, the one thing that she held dearest: Her virtue and her innocence. Now Joan would fight violently, alone, with her perfectly fit armor protecting her.
Finally, she was taken to stand trial, overseen by the church. They tried to charge her with heresy. After all, she had claimed to see angels. But even with a corrupt court, the prosecutor couldn't get her convicted of heresy. So they finally convicted her of breaking a law that she had indeed broken: Cross-dressing, dressing like a boy, which was also heresy.
She dressed like a boy to protect her body not from arrows or rocks, but from the evil men. The court decreed that to avoid death, she must change to a dress. And so she did. In a dress, they threw her back in the same prison. Again, they tried to violate young Joan and she fought them off. After several unsuccessful attempts and attacks, they threw her armor back into her cell. She put it on, not realizing what that meant.
As if planned, the prosecutor entered the prison, accused her of disobeying the order of the court and the church. So they dragged her back into court with her armor where, this time, she was sentenced to death.
As they tied to Joan a stake to be burned, English guards began to shed tears, many begging it to stop. But, no man stood for her right to be virtuous, and she died in flames at the stake.
The English, so weakened by their guilt, were driven completely from the territory by France. Nearly 500 years later, during World War I, the Pope proclaimed her a saint — St. Joan of Arc. Her name and her virtue now live forever, and the men who did not honor it are long forgotten.