Believe in Yourself and Others

Some time ago I watched a TV series called the 4400 which was filmed in Vancouver.  In this series people who had disappeared over the years from around the world suddenly reappeared.   Each of the disappeared came back with a gift that began to manifest itself.  One woman was a teacher and she came back with the ability to see and call forth the gifts that lie buried deep within her students.  Her students began to excel.  The students began to see themselves in new ways because their teacher was able to see something beautiful in them.   This is fiction, and yet it can happen in real life.

One day a teacher asked her grade one class to write a story. A boy I knew was in that class.  He was two years behind his classmates developmentally.  When he finished the story it was impossible to read. Every other student had written a story that was technically better than Jay’s.  Yet the grade one teacher gave Jay an award for being a good story teller.   She then read his story to not only his class, but to the other grade one class at the school.

Through the years Jay carried an image of himself as a good story teller and he struggled to overcome his learning disabilities.  In Grade 6 he couldn’t write a sentence so his mother home schooled him for that year.  Jay graduated from university with a degree in Creative Writing.  I doubt he would have done so without that grade one teacher who saw something special in him and named it.  Or perhaps she was simply being kind, but Jay believed her words and was given a vision of himself which kept him pressing onwards. 

Susan Boyle suffered from oxygen deprivation at birth and was never as quick as other children.  She was bullied as a child and experienced more than a little rejection throughout her life.  When she came onstage for Britain’s Got Talent and said she wanted to be a professional singer eyes rolled and people laughed.   What they saw was a frumpy older woman who in their eyes did not belong on that stage.  Then Susan opened her mouth and began to sing. By looking at her people thought they knew all that there was to know.   Yet it took mere seconds for their vision of who she was to be forever changed.  With it came a lesson that you cannot judge people by what they look like. 

Every one of us has talents and abilities. Some will remain unused for a lifetime.  Some people will believe a lie about themselves.  A lie that tells them they have nothing to offer the world.  They will believe the lie and make it true. May God help us to see beauty and ability where it lies hidden.  May we have the grace to name the ability and talents we see in others when they are unable to see it themselves.