Sometimes, we are God's instruments

Sometimes, we can change the course of an individual's life without even knowing it.

This is a true story, and I'm almost embarrassed to tell it.

When I taught in Payette (ID), my teaching day started (at the time) at the middle school, and then I drove to the high school and taught the rest of my classes there. So I found myself in the high school band room after school ended each day.

One afternoon, probably thirty minutes after dismissal, I started down the hallway from my room towards the office (probably - I don't recall my destination for sure), and one of my students was at her locker - a freshman girl whom I'd taught since she started the instrument in sixth grade. She was meticulously cleaning her locker, and I thought nothing unusual about it.

I stopped and visited with her briefly, making small talk about how fastidious she was, and was my usual smiling, engaging self  I tended to be with all my students. I don't want to say it was an act, because I really did and do care about those children like they were my own by the time I've taught them for four or more years, like this young lady. But the outgoing part of me is a bit of a show, since I'm an introvert by nature. As a teacher, I was a professional extrovert. But I digress.


Fast forward, let's see, about three and a half years, and the same young lady is now a graduating senior. A few days before graduation, she gives me her invitation to graduation (always just a memento, since I'll obviously be there to direct the band), and tells me a story that changed my life.

"Do you remember that day my freshman year when you walked by me and I was cleaning out my locker in the hallway?"

Yes, I lied. The vast majority of such interactions fade from memory as quickly as they're made.

"Did you ever wonder why I was cleaning out my locker then?"

No, to be honest, I hadn't. See previous answer.

"I was going to take home all of my personal belongings and leave all the school books there, so it would be easier for people to tidy up after I'd killed myself."

Long pause on my part.

"I thought, Nobody cares about me, nobody likes me, I'm a waste of space. There wasn't going to be anyone in my house that afternoon for a few hours, so I'd have time to poison myself and be dead before anyone else got home. 

"And then you stopped what you were doing, and made a point to say hello, and visited with me like I was important to you."

"You were, and you are," finally able to speak.

"I understand that now. But at the time, it was a revelation. And I thought, well, if Mr. Smith cares about me, then I can make it one more day for his sake. And it turned out that was the bottom of the well, and the beginning of the road back up out of the worst of my depression.

"Mister Smith, you saved my life that day, and I just wanted you to know that. Thank you."

That was sobering enough, to be told you saved someone's life, and I'm honored to have played a small part in this young woman's story. But the more sobering thought is this: I don't remember the incident she described at ALL. To me, it was apparently just a typical, off-the-cuff interaction with a student in the hallway, engaged in rather instinctively and forgotten twenty minutes later. And it saved her from suicide.

How we deal with others on a day-to-day basis is more important than we realize. If you practice positive relations with everyone you engage with, you're likely to do much more than just lower your own blood pressure, create a positive reputation for yourself, and please God. 

You might just save someone's life.

There was an old Sufi story which Robert Fulghum repeats in one of his books, which I'll abbreviate for space and to motivate you to read his books to find it - you could do far worse things with your time than reading through his anecdotes on life. It seems a man was granted a wish by a powerful genie, and he wished to go around doing good things for people without ever knowing that he was doing them. The genie granted that wish, and then thought it was such a great idea that he granted that same wish to every human being on the planet. And it's still that way today.