A Most Precious Life
I have always thought of teaching as the noblest of professions because to me, it is the ongoing opportunity to enlighten and empower fellow travelers on this, our shared journey. Two days ago I found out that a teaching of mine did even more than that—it virtually saved a life.
I teach what I know for sure, and one thing I know for sure is the power of belief. I know how grand that power is first-hand—indeed, Bedside Harp is a fruit plucked from that tree. And now a fruit even more precious has burst forth.
Minutes after an awful car accident, a student, hopelessly pinned under her overturned, smoking vehicle remembered something I said to her and her classmates some months earlier: “If you believe in yourself and in the awesome powers you possess, there is nothing—nothing that you cannot do.” It was those very words that inspired her to believe against all odds, that she could, in fact, extricate herself from this potentially fatal situation. She believed this with all her heart, and, lo and behold, miraculously managed to free herself and move safely out of harm’s way.
What a stunning affirmation to me that I am doing absolutely what I have been placed on this earth to do!
“In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.” ~Jacques Barzun
“What a teacher writes on the blackboard of life can never be erased.” ~Author Unknown
“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” ~Henry Brooks Adams
Enjoy your day!
#1 from .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on December 20, 2011
Edie, thank you for sharing this with us! Your mentoring and teaching bears fruit in the most profound and fragile experiences of all those whose lives you touch! You are an instrument of healing grace. Thank you! Blessings and love, Jane