Today I met a rather sweet couple. I had taken the children to a cafe after school to celebrate the end of the term. Yay for us! The second we arrived I apologised that their quiet cuppa was now going to be interrupted.

“How lovely!” she said, beaming.
“I had three boys and then I adopted a girl. I love little ones!”

Good. Thought I.

She looked approvingly at my noisy rabble. “Aren’t they fabulous?” she said, addressing the owner of the cafe.

“Oh yes!” she remarked, “I love having them here. They are always so lovely and well-behaved.”

My children, of course, sat up straight, ate their cake beautifully (with forks) and spoke sweetly to one another, as if butter wouldn’t melt for a full four minutes. Then it wore off.

Half way through another conversation about the importance of discipline, Esther (who was knee deep in a piece of chocolate cake bigger than her head) wiped her face with her brown-stained hands. She looked as though she had fallen into a muddy puddle, head first.

She turned around and got the attention of our near neighbours at the adjoining table, squealing with pleasure at her chocolately-ness. She then wiped her hands on the highchair and herself, making pleasing spirals.

The couple, in turn, enjoyed the scene and rather than berating me for allowing a one year that much sugar, or minding the three boys addressing them in loud voices about various matters, they told me a wonderful story.

The man, now retired, was a teacher of Special needs children for many years. This weekend, he received a wedding invitation from a boy he had last seen and heard of 26 years ago.

This boy (now man) had searched and searched until he had found this beloved teacher… the man who had taught him 26 years ago that he was worth something and would one day be loved. Openly weeping as she told me this tale, and with me listening with tears in my eyes too, I thought how amazingly we can influence people for good. We can be the difference between someone rubbishing themselves or writing themselves off and seeing value and worth within.

As I heard this lovely story and how this dear couple had sobbed their way through the letter that came with the invitation, I realised too what this had meant to this retired teacher. He may have thought on occasion that his job meant little more than stopping other children in the school bully his class (something his wife told me took him two solid weeks of name-calling to stop.)

But 26 years on, he knows different. He is remembered in the life of that man who fought against many difficulties as a hero, a champion and a giver of hope.

Oh God! Please make me like that with people I come into contact with too. Help me always to be so positive that people feel and act towards themselves as though they had just heard the very words of Jesus speaking over them.
Amen