Throughout high school I have been pretty much told what to write and what to think. I enjoyed the challenge of his vague writing assignments; it made me have to really think about what I put down on paper.
As the school year progressed I became very ill and missed several of my classes. I apologized over and over to my professors for missing their classes, and I did the assignments out of hospital rooms or between trips to specialists and weekly doctors visits. At the end of the term my medical condition had improved some and I was able to start doing some of the extra credit to make up for my daily grades. I worked double time to bring my grades up.
The day of my English final, Professor Wilcox approached me and handed me a single sheet of rose pink paper. He told me to read on my way home to Texas. I decided that I couldn't wait and the second I stepped into my dorm room I opened the paper and read aloud. He had wanted to thank me for encouraging him throughout the school year.
In his letter he described the plight of a young woman, the youngest in her class, struggling with sickness and a full class schedule that somehow managed to pull herself up by her bootstraps and muttle through the year.
The last line of his letter read as follows: "I have watched you thoroughly enjoy yourself in my class, and I have read of your struggle against all odds to stay in school. You truly personify my favorite verse in the book , Thank you for showing the world how to be brave and how to rely completely on God."
I hadn't realized it at the time but everything we do and say affects other people. My being sick had helped a professor I barely knew to get through a very trying time in his life. I just want everyone to know that even though things may seem rough, there will always be better days ahead.
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