The Best In You

“When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.”

-William Arthur Ward

              Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working hard to intentionally help the students at the rec. center to become stronger readers. I’ve made individual plans for each of them, and have been tracking their progress so as to better help me evaluate how I can help them best. We’re still in the beginning stages, and so it’s often a struggle with some of them. Most are still learning to read, which, in case you’ve forgotten over the years, is extremely hard and frustrating when you’re just beginning.

              We’ve been coming every week since the start of the school year, and so my heart has grown quite attached to each kid. I wholeheartedly want the best for each of them. Playing games with them and listening to their stories brings me so much joy. Laughing a dancing with them are always highlights. I want to be a part of their happiness, but because I care about them, I also want to be a part of their struggle. I want to enter into their process and fight to overcome, even when they don’t want to.

              However, part of wanting the best for someone, especially when they are fighting against it, is seeking to discover the best in them that already exists. Too often I find, even myself, falling into this mindset of service and superiority. I’m trying to help them. I’m doing them a service. They are lucky that I care. There’s a problem with that. I’m starting them out at a loss, and trying to give them more. It fails to acknowledge all the value and beauty that is already there. One must seek to discover the beauty that already exist in every person. And we must start with that beauty. Our approach much change to, “I see this beauty in you, and I desire to see it blossom in you even more.” “I love this beauty that I see in you, but I also see who you are becoming, and I love that too.”

              The crazy thing about this approach, is that it changes us, too; and brings out the best in ourselves as well. It starts by humbling us. No longer am I helping out of service, but out of genuine love. This mindset also offers grace in our own lives. It allows us to view ourselves in a new light. We can take our flaws and not be overwhelmed by them, but rather see them in light of who we are, and who, by God’s grace, He is continuing to make us into.

              These children have and continue to be such a blessing to me. They continue to teach and grow me in such beautiful ways. But what about you? Who are the people God has put in your life? How are you approaching your relationship and fellowship with them? Are you seeking to see the best in others? We are all flawed people who need a lot of work. There will be always be aspects in others that you wish would change, but how are you approaching that? Are you simply leaving it at just what they need and how they should change? Or are you also seeking to discover the beauty that already resides in them? I have given my students more grace since they are so young, but it is teaching me lessons that I need to extend to others. It’s humbling me in ways that challenge how I view others, and my need of His great grace in my heart. It’s showing the ugly in my heart, and my need to listen when Paul writes in Philippians 2:3 “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”

Written Into The Story

There’s something about being a part of a story that is so thrilling. I remember growing up, my dad would always tell us these epic stories before bed, on camping trips, or just long car rides. They were all about these five kids who did awesome things and even though they had different names, they all represented one of us, his five children. Mine was the oldest sister named Ariel (yes, like the princess in the Little Mermaid, my dad is a genius at making his little girl smile) and before every story we also got to pick one thing we wanted to be in the story, like dolphins (my usual go to).

I’m all grown up now, and it’s been years since I’ve heard one of these childhood stories, but his knack for drawing in his listeners hasn’t changed. This past week, we got to read a few more of the books we bought, to some of the kids who weren’t there before Christmas break. My dad was reading with one boy, who wasn’t really into the story and my dad could tell. So he points to a blank section of the page, next to the illustration, and says, “they forgot to paint you in, but you’re in this story, too. You’re sitting right there…” and he went on to fill in how this boy was a part of the story. Well this kid starts beaming, asking with every page where he is, and what he’s doing. By the time the story is almost over this kid is basically co-writing this book with all his added dialogue. And by the time they finish, this kid is so excited, that they’ve now come to me, commissioning me as a co-illustrator to their revised story, and I’m taking pictures as this kid starts posing so that I can literally paint him into this storybook.

What can I say, there’s just something about getting to be a part of the story. The crazy, wild, beautiful thing is that we too are part of a story. God’s story. I love what Hebrew’s 12:2 says, “fixing our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith…” I love that the word author is there. It makes it feel even more like a story, with a writer and everything. A master story teller, who lets us co-write at times, to tell him that we want dolphins in this story, or to be painted in over here. So skilled that He can work with us, and still write a great story. In fact, it seems he finds joy in writing it with us.

Donald Miller writes a lot about our lives as stories, and more importantly, of our lives as part of God’s story. In his book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, he writes,

If I have a hope, it’s that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story and put us in with sunsets and the rainstorm as though to say, “Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you.”

This boy quickly picked up that he could create within the story, and that’s a beautiful thing that many of us often forget we can do. Too often we forget that God wrote us into His grand story, and even more often, we forget that He has not only given us the freedom, but also equipped us to be used in the creating of that story as well. 

Part of the writing process of my story has been telling God my desire to have inner city kids make up some of the crucial characters in my life story. Part of the beauty has been getting to look back and see just how He has chosen to write them in to my story. The most exciting part, however, is getting to continue living out and seeing how the story unfolds, expressing new story ideas along the way, like helping these children to realize the beauty that they too are a significant part of God’s story. The story is still being written, but every week it seems that God adds something into the week’s chapter that thrills me, and fills me with joy and hope.