Getting what you ask for

      In the morning I asked for some sign that someone was actually looking at these words aside from myself.  These blogs are important to me as ways to express myself and maybe at some point give some insight to someone about the nature of what depths healing can come from and go into.
      This afternoon I received a beautiful email from an old friend  and a comment from another who read what I write and I found those the answer to my prayer. It also reminded me of a story.
      There was a high school English teacher several years ago who, in the middle of a long day, saw the rather dispirited way her class was acting and decided to change the assignment of the day from the usual to one of having each student write down something that they appreciated, respected, or liked about every other student in the class. The assignment went well and the teacher collected the papers. During the Christmas vacation that followed she took each of the papers cut them up and pasted all of each students comments about each individual onto a sheet that each individual could have that was written about them.
      At another rather slow day she passed the amalgamated papers of each person to the person about whom the comments were written.
      The teacher thought it went fairly well.
      Sadly, several years later she attended the funeral of one of those students who had been killed in Iraq. After the services the mother of the boy approached the teacher with a sheet of paper in her hand. The boy's mother gave it to the teacher who recognized the amalgamated work as the assignment she had given.
       The boy's mother said that her son had carried it with him always and had died with it in his pocket.
       The teacher was surprised when several of the boys fellow students started bringing forth their copies of the amalgamated paper. One told of how she had it framed and hanging prominently in her home. Another kept prominently displayed in his business. Every student had kept that list and valued it highly.
        Thank you.