When I was young, I used to be a lively, cheerful, and happy girl. I remembered that I was such an extrovert that I was always singing and dancing and wasn’t at all shy with adults. I always did well in school and was often chosen to be the class monitor. I was very proud of myself and felt confident about everything. But there was one particular class taught by a very stern teacher that changed everything. 

At the beginning of second grade, our class was assigned a new Chinese teacher who had just graduated from a Teacher’s College. He was the youngest of all the teachers in our school, and also the sternest. He was so strict with us that we could not speak even a word or move in our chair during class. The only thing we could do was sit quietly with our hands folded on top of our desks, listening to him and answering his questions when we were addressed.

We were all just young children, and it was hard for us to stay still for 45 minutes during his class. All the students disliked the teacher, but we couldn’t do anything about it. When I told my parents that the teacher was too strict, they said: “Oh, he is doing the right thing for you. He wants you to focus on your studies and have a better grade on your final examination.”

One day in Chinese class, the teacher assigned an essay to us and asked me, the monitor, to collect all the papers for him after class. Then, he left the room. We were so happy that we finally had an easy class without his control. The classroom suddenly became noisy and full of hubbub. Some boys even ran around the desks and chased each other. I tried to make them quiet and write their essay because we needed to hand them in after class, but no one listened to me.

Just at the moment of total chaos, our teacher unexpectedly reappeared! He was so angry that he yelled at us loudly: “What are you doing?” All the students immediately became quiet and began to do their homework. But the teacher still took offence, and he rushed to my desk, pulled me up by my collar, moved me to the platform, and scolded me in front of my classmates for not controlling the class. He drew a circle on the blackboard and ordered me to stand still with my nose stuck in the circle for the rest of the class period. I was embarrassed and frightened as tears filled my eyes. Time passed very slowly and even seemed to be motionless. It was the most difficult and humiliating moment I had ever experienced!

I didn’t dare tell my parents what happened at school because I had lost face and felt so disgraced and ashamed. When they asked why I was so unhappy after school, I said nothing, but only went to my bedroom and cried until my eyes hurt. I didn’t want to go to school anymore, but that was impossible, because the next morning my parents forced me to go. While walking to school, I felt so depressed and thought that all my classmates were talking about my experience and laughing at me.

I still clearly remember that embarrassing class and the difficult period I had afterward. I began to focus on how people thought about me, or even judged me. There was no more laughter in my heart nor a smile on my face. I had become what I always feared, a solemn and depressed introvert!

Additional Comments – I don’t know about you, but my heart broke after reading her story. Knowing that God had called us to China not only to teach our students to speak and write better English, but also to bless and encourage them as much as we were able. And so, I knew that this young woman needed encouragement, badly. She was now a PhD student, and so she had been living with this for about fourteen years.

She was in my very first class of students, and she sat in the front row, third from the outside isle, to my left. We had only been in class for a month back in the spring of 2011, and I had seen something in her that caught my attention. So, what could I say to her? After much thought and prayer, I wrote on her paper, “I have seen a spark in your eyes. I believe that one day, you will walk out of the darkness and into the light.”

When I returned her paper and read my comment, she knew that I cared about her, and that began a series of meaningful conversations about life and about how to obtain real life from the only Person who could give it to her. Her experience in the classroom many years before left her “a solemn and depressed introvert,” but as a result of that traumatic experience, she has become a totally different person, in fact, a transformed person.

Encouraging others was always a part of Jesus’ ministry, and is a constant theme throughout the New Testament. We should always seek to bless others, and to be like a drink of fresh, cool water to a weary and thirsty traveler. The Apostle Paul told the Christians in Corinth that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the “Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” Furthermore, “He comforts us in all of our troubles so that we can comfort others just as He has comforted us” (2 Cor. 1:3-4).

I’m so grateful that God allowed me the privilege of being her professor many years ago. Maybe this week, we can all think of an encouraging word we can say to lift up a discouraged soul, or an act of kindness to lift their spirits. Our words and actions just might be a critical link in a chain of events that will change someone’s life. Truly, if the Great Encourager has encouraged us along life’s journey, then let’s be faithful stewards of this gift of encouragement, and “pass it forward.”