These past few days I have been quite emotional and rather nostalgic. As I read Path to Wholeness, there was a passage that emphasized the role teachers play in the lives of students and how they can make or break a child. I had also been hearing a resounding message in the readings about believing in the God of the impossible. I remember my encouraging teachers and trying to see what they saw in me.
I came from a violent home because my father was an alcoholic. My mother was a public figure and we had to protect our family’s reputation. So, we didn’t speak about the home in public nor did we discuss the violence that happened there. One didn’t simply wash dirty linen in public. We had to portray a picture of a normal family.
Aside from my faith, I took refuge in schoolwork. Because I got good grades, I received affirmation from peers and teachers alike. But I remember particular teachers that made me feel like I was someone and that I mattered. The first teacher I remember was a nun in my elementary school in Chicago, I was a new student and I couldn’t speak English very well. So, I had to sit with her for a couple of weeks. As she taught me, she said, “I’m sure you know this” and from those words, I felt confident and I began to understand. When she met with my parents, she only had praises for me and the belief that I could be integrated into my normal grade with no problems. I had some stumbling blocks but, in the end, English was my favourite subject and I excelled in Spelling too. I even won the school Spelling bee and received my first Walkman. Throughout my stay in the school, I was a consistent honour roll student. This was because one teacher showed me that I could do it. What a difference one teacher can make.
The next “teacher” I had was the school registrar of my high school in Abu Dhabi. She was my bandurria teacher in fact and not an actual teacher in my school albeit being the school registrar at the same time. She took all my adolescent angst and received them with love. She would invite me to tea parties after bandurria practice and we had amazing conversations although she always said that I could talk in front of a mirror. What she didn’t know was that I couldn’t speak so freely with anyone else. I was a bit shy with others but with her I could talk about any topic under the sun. She also told me that smiling suited me. That was the start of the transformation of my becoming a smiley person. I looked at myself in the mirror and indeed I looked grim when I didn’t smile and that I didn’t look half bad smiling. So I did. Her belief in me as a good person and not the angsty teenager I portrayed opened my heart to receive love from other people. She made me feel that I could be loved. So, I believed that I was loveable.
Another instrumental teacher was my Economics (Social Studies) teacher who believed that I should join an essay writing contest. I didn’t even know I could write. He saw something I didn’t see, and he made me believe that I could write. He made me write about being a migrant and my experience as a migrant child. The theme of the essay was “The Filipino in me”. It was the first essay contest I ever joined, and I won third place in my category. I couldn’t believe it when I received the letter, some money and I got a trophy too. So, that was a turning point in my life. I had initially wanted to be a doctor but instead I took to the letters and finished a course in journalism in University with honours. Had these teachers not taken time to appreciate and show me that I was not who I thought I was – someone who couldn’t do anything nor excel at anything, I would have stayed an angry person filled with regret or hatred.
So as I read the readings of how people believed in Jesus, I remembered these teachers who had faith in their students’ capabilities. I am not comparing myself with Jesus of course. I am emphasizing the fact that He is the God of the impossible. For all the things I thought were impossible to me, He used these teachers to show me that I can believe in myself, that with their help, I can overcome my own disbelief in me.
And so I wanted to say thank you to these wonderful people who took time to plant a seed of hope in a student who had so much doubt and lacked self-confidence. If it weren’t for them, I would not be who I am today.
So I thank all the teachers out there (special mention to my best friends Jam Hernandez Doyle and Janis Yu) who make and made a difference in their students’ lives by seeing their hidden gifts and bringing it to life, by being loving to the hurting students who may be suffering from their personal lives and for the hope that they bring to every student and letting them believe in themselves because all it takes is one person to believe.
Of course, I also thank God because He put these people in my life. He knew what I needed and He believed in me first. I thank God for believing in all of us that we are worthy of His dying on the Cross because we are special to Him. I hope as you read my little reflection, you too will stop in your disbelief and believe in yourself – that you are worthy and you are special and that you matter because God believes in you.
