Because I'm a teacher and have seen literally hundreds of students over the course of the last 34 years, it's pretty common to go to the store and run into enough school kids to consider counting our "time" together as a regular school day. It happens to me alot, it seems~if not at Dillons, it might be Wal Mart or the Kwik Shop or anywhere else you can imagine! One of those "extra perks" of being a teacher is meeting some of the finest people around in the most unusual of places, KIDS.
So last night, as I was standing there debating the merits of whether to buy "chunky" or "low fat smooth" peanut butter, it happened. From the end of the aisle I heard it...."Hey, Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Miller!!" I turned around to see them running towards me and instinctively I grabbed "old lefty" close to me (LOL) and shouted out a greeting to them.
They hugged me as if we hadn't seen one another in ages, but really it had only been a couple of hours since we were all in school together. That didn't matter to them, they were just chatting away as if there was no reason not to. Suddenly, around the corner, I saw a woman coming towards us. She was following all the noise, obviously their "mom". The oldest of the sisters ran over to grab her by the arm and bring her to where we were standing. And this is the where the power of one "four-letter" word was shown...
"Mama, come here! I want you to meet her~She's Mrs. Miller from school. This is the GIRL that teaches us how to read!"
I thought to myself, "Did she just call me a 'girl'? Hey, holy moley, I think she DID!" A huge smile broke over my face and as I looked into the mirror this morning, I'm still wearing it :) That little child had no clue last night just how tired, worn out, and low this "girl who teaches her to read" was feeling. I hadn't even made it home from school yet.
"Old lefty" was aching badly, it was 6:40 in the evening for crying out loud and all I wanted to do was just get the heck home. But there I was in Dillons, fighting the crowd and pushing my cart filled with way too many groceries and oh yeah, one other thing~BEING BLESSED by the "chance" meeting with two of God's little people.
You know, I probably have heard tens of thousands of words spoken in the last few days and most of them didn't even stick with me. Oh yeah, that must be why I'm always having to write stuff down these days, geesch! But the kind and innocent thought of a little 8-year old kid who said to her mom, "this is the girl that teaches us to read" is still with me, verbatim, now nearly 12 hours later. That's powerful!
I think this "teacher" learned a lesson about life while standing in Aisle 7 last night...and the lesson came from the heart of a small child...You will never know how much impact a word spoken for either good OR bad reasons will have on the lives of those you come across. Gives new credence to the old saying, "Keep your words sweet~because you'll never know when you might have to eat them."
So, my loving appreciation to that little girl who unknowingly and most innocently made my day end up so much brighter. For these, even the littlest of things, I do so give thanks to God above. I accept them with a heart, wide open.
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