'Gift from God'

Today one of my students asked if she could tell me something. We went outside the room, and I was nervous about what it was going to be. She is the oldest of 7 kids living in her house, her mother has cancer that she didn't appear to be getting treated, and through it all, my student was the rock of the family. She also came to school every day and worked super hard; you'd never know that her home-life was in such a shambles. She is so resilient, it's unreal.

So in the hall, she has this huge grin on her face and she tells me that her mother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and she (my student) was so terribly sad, but she never stopped believing in God, and she prayed and prayed and prayed and then her mom came home and told them at her most recent drs appt they didn't find any cancer. My student was overjoyed. She was shining like there was literally a light inside her.

(Now, not to be a scrooge (although I do tend to skew that way these days), but I have serious doubts that the mom doesn't have cancer any more....but that is almost beside the point.)

After she finished telling me about her miracle, she looked me straight in the eye and said 'Ms. B, I want to thank you. You have been a gift from God to me.'

This child has no idea what I am going through in my personal life, but today when she said that with such radiance, I had to wonder (skeptical self stepping aside for a tiny minute) - what is going on here? Is this some kind of message from God? Am I supposed to be sitting up and taking notice? What does it mean, to be a 'gift from God'?

Online, there is lots of talk among the infertile people about life having 'meaning', and that having kids gave your life 'meaning', so therefore if you couldn't have kids, your life is meaningless.

Thankfully, I have never felt that. I don't think my worth as a human is wrapped up in whether I raise children or not, and my life is plenty meaningful already. I'm lucky to have a job that is full of meaning and opportunities to make a difference in someone's life.

But the timing of this encounter gave me pause. I'm not sure how to process it or integrate it into my swirling brain, but maybe by writing about it I won't forget it.


If anyone has suggestions on how to interpret this (or maybe I'm making too big a thing out of it?), I'd be interested to hear them.