THE ABILITY TO ASSIGN VALUE

Saturday, May 23, 2009

I want to tell you the story of a young boy named Teddy Stollard. He was not the kind of kid who got invited to parties. He slouched in his chair and looked bored most of the time. He never dressed right; he had smelly clothes; he was a rather unattractive boy.

When Teddy's teacher would mark his papers, she got a certain perverse pleasure out of marking all the wrong answers. She could have known better because his history was on record. In the First grade it was noted he was a good boy and showed promise but had a poor home situation. In the Second grade he was quiet and withdrawn and his mother was terminally ill. It was noted in the Third grade that he was falling behind. His mother died that year and his father was uninvolved. In the Fourth grade Teddy was hopelessly backward. His father moved away. He started living with his aunt and he was deeply troubled.

Christmas came, and all the children brought presents to school. They were carefully wrapped, except for Teddy's, which was packaged in brown paper and held together with tape and marked, "For Miss Thompson from Teddy." The teacher would open the gifts for the class to admire. When she opened Teddy's it was a rhinestone bracelet with most of the stones missing, and a bottle of perfume that was almost gone. The other children started to laugh, but Miss Thompson caught herself. Snapping on the braclet, she said: "Isn't it lovely, class? And doesn't the perfume smell good?"

At the end of the class, Teddy approached her shyly. "I'm glad you liked my gifts, Miss Thompson," he whispered. "All day long you smelled like my mother. And her bracelet looked nice on you, too."

After he left, Miss Thompson put her head down on her desk and cried. She asked God to forgive her. She prayed that God would help her to see what he sees when she looks at a motherless boy. From that point on she changed. She tutored the children who needed extra help. Teddy most of all. by the end of the year he had caught up with most of his classmates and was ahead of some. After that, she didn't hear from him for quite a while. Then one day she received a note:

Dear Miss Thompson,
I wanted you to be the first to know I am graduating from high school, and I am second in my class.
Love, Teddy Stollard

Four years later came another note:

Dear Miss Thompson,
I wanted you to be the first to know I am graduating first in my class. The university has not been easy. but I liked it.
Love, Teddy Stollard

Four years later, another note:

Dear Miss Thompson,
I wanted you to be the first to know that as of today I am Theodore J. Stollard, M.D. How about that? I want you to come sit where my mother would have sat, because you're the nearest thing to family that I've had.
Love, Teddy Stollard

The ability to assign value is one of the rarest and greatest gifts in the world.

So value what God values.

(This is one of my favorite stories. It was told by Dale Galloway in John Ortberg's book, Everybody's Normal Till You Get To Know Them )