November 1, 2006
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An Encouraging Story…
One Friday afternoon a junior high math teacher asked her students at St. Mary’s School in Morris, Minnesota, to list the names of all the other students in the class, leaving a space between names. Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. At the end of the period she collected these sheets and over the weekend, she wrote the name of each student on a separate sheet and listed what everyone had said about that person. On Monday, she gave each student his or her list.
As they began reading, they started whispering to each other, “I never knew that meant anything to anyone” or, “I didn’t know others liked me so much.” The papers were never discussed in class, but the teacher knew the exercise was a success because it gave her students such a positive feeling about themselves.
Several years later, one of those students, Mark Eklund, was killed in Vietnam. After his body was returned to Minnesota, most of his classmates, along with the math teacher, attended the funeral. At the luncheon after the service, the father of the young man said to the teacher, “I want to show you something,” and took a wallet out of his pocket. “They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.” Opening the billfold, he removed two worn sheets of notebook paper which had been taped, folded, and refolded many times. It was the list of good things Mark’s classmates had written about him.
“Thank you so much for doing that,” Mark’s mother told the teacher. “As you can see, our son treasured it.” One by one, Mark’s classmates began to reveal that each of them still had their sheet and that they read it often. Some carried it in a billfold; one had even put it in his wedding album. One man said, “I think we all saved our list.”I got this story from the book “The Five Love Languages of Children.” 1Thessalonians 5:11, Hebrews 3:13, and Hebrews 10:25. Keep encouraging each other, you may never know how great of a difference you are making…
Comments (5)
WOW..
i love the five love languages series, Ive read the original and The Love Languages of God. What a help they have been in life. They really have been great when it comes to understanding people.
When I was in Jr high my small group/devotional group did that, I still have my piece of paper.
very encouraging…have a great day.
praise God~ hope u’re well jm…u back yet??
i did one of those in highschool… def one of the more memorable things from highschool… but i think i threw my list away