A teacher, whose job was to visit children in a city hospital, was assigned to a boy who had been badly burned. The child was in so much pain that he barely responded, and the teacher felt ashamed at putting him through what seemed like a senseless exercise. But the next morning a nurse on the burn unit asked: ‘What did you do to that boy? We’ve been so worried about him. But ever since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back and responding to treatment.’
Later, the boy himself explained that he’d given up hope until he saw the teacher and realized that they wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and verbs if he was about to die. She became his lifeline to recovery.
It reminds us that no matter what the pain, life, hope and God come to us in the form of people.