Bless Your Heart Devotions - The Power of One Word

I can't remember her first name and I am pretty sure her last name was Mrs. Johnson. She was my 7th grade English teacher. I can vaguely remember her appearance. She had black curly hair, wore glasses and wore the newly available Invisaline braces.

I don't remember much else about her except that she changed my life with one written word.

In school I was mostly a straight A student, competitive in grades and an avid reader. One day in English class, Mrs. Johnson gave us the assignment of writing two poems. I remember the groans from class, especially the boys! What 7th grader wants to write poems!!??!!  I  just took it as another class assignment to be conquered to get that A, so I did what I always did, tried to think it out and do the best I could.

So I spent the whole weekend working on the poems. I knew the words had to rhyme and being a typical emotional teenager, I tried to write something heartfelt.  One was a little patriotic and the other was about nature.   I accomplished my task, checked it off my list, turned it in the following Monday and promptly forgot about it.

A week later, Mrs. Johnson handed back our papers and at the top, written in red ink in her elegant handwriting was that one word that changed my life.

Excellent.

It is amazing how one word can suddenly open up a whole new world of possibility in one's mind. I had not even realized that I would love creative writing. I had no idea that it was something I would enjoy or even possibly be good at. I was astounded, I had never written in that way before. Since Mrs. Johnson was one tough English teacher, I trusted her word.

I was too shy to speak to Mrs. Johnson about her comment on my page. I never told her how I felt and she never said anything to me either. She had absolutely no idea the profound effect she had on me with just one word. To her, I may have been just another student, another poem, another grade. She may have tried to offer me a little encouragement with her comment, but she never knew its impact or future results.

I still have those poems in my files and I occasionally see them and smile.

One word was all it took. One word is all it takes.

You were an excellent teacher Mrs. Johnson. Thank you.