~Kristen Bell
I am not really sure where my passion for the underdog came from, but I constantly find myself cheering for them and doing what I can to help them. This has turned out to be especially true in my job where I am working with youth who seem to have lost sight of their Northern Star. When everyone says they will not make it, there is something inside of me that digs to see what the Maker sees in these students. Often I will see there is a glimmer, a spark that they can be something great.
This summer I worked with two students to finish their diploma. Granted, I was only on the back end of their journey. But one of them I had almost given up on when I learned who he was and how much he struggled. But I saw him climb and scramble to get to the top. Then something sparked to open a path for him. Every day he completed something I cheered even louder for him in my heart.
People around him said he would not finish. He would be another addition to Adult Education where he would become a statistic of high school drop-outs and no diploma or GED. The more they said he would not make it, the louder I cheered for him to make it. And he proved the naysayers wrong.
When he came in to get his diploma, there was a road block. A person who was working with him could not believe he had done it. They wanted him to wait a week. I begged her to find a way that we could give it to him that day. She finally relented and I almost cried when I handed him that black leather binder with a precious piece of paper in it. He didn't even want to take it out of the plastic sack so he could protect it.
He's the first in his family to get a high school diploma.
"Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not, but we will all be judged by only one thing - the result."
~ Vince Lombardi
In a sense I think we are all underdogs. Spiritually speaking, we are going up against a master deceiver with 6,000 years of experience. The world we live in seems to thrive on the sorrows and downfall of other people. We have become such a pessimistic people.
President Thomas S. Monson shared this story a number of years ago in his article The Doorway to Love:
A number of years ago Morgan High School played Millard High for the Utah state football championship. From his wheelchair, to which he was confined, Morgan coach Jan Smith said to his team: “This is the most important game of your lives. You lose, and you will regret it forever. You win, and you will remember it forever. Make every play as though it were all-important.”
Behind the door, his wife, to whom he tenderly referred as his chief assistant, overheard her husband say: “I love you guys. I don’t care about the ball game. I love you and want the game victory for you.” Underdog Morgan High won the football game and the state championship.
True love is a reflection of Christ’s love. In December of each year we call it the Christmas spirit. You can hear it. You can see it. You can feel it. But never alone.
I pray each day that Heavenly Father will help me see people as He sees them. Admittedly, I am not perfect. But I am working on it. We can always use more optimism and love in this world.
Perhaps this is the heartbreak of the Gospel and being a teacher. Ofttimes you see something great about a person, but they refuse to do anything with it. You want so much the great blessings in store for them, but it doesn't matter until they want to do something with it. It has to be their decision. That is the heartbreak of free-agency.
But we have to be careful to be so sensitive because not everything happens in our time. We may have been together with a person and shared some wonderful experiences, then something happens and the switch turns off. That doesn't mean we stop loving them, or praying for them.
I share this because of an experience I had yesterday. Just before going into my test I checked my e-mail and had a friend request from a young man I taught when I was serving a mission in Chile. He was a bright-eyed young man who was loveable among his peers. We shared some special moments together and I knew he would be a great member of the Church.
He accepted the gospel, but a few weeks after his baptism something happened. He stopped coming to church and ran away. My heart broke in that moment and I prayed that he would find his way back to the gospel. I didn't know how to contact him and subsequently have not talked to him in nearly seven years.
But when I came to the realization that the request was from who I thought it was from, all I could do was smile and give thanks. His grandmother always told us that we had made a mistake to baptize him. He was flippant, lazy and never make it, according to her. But the Big Man upstairs knew different and I could feel it.
Last night I got to talk to him and he just got home from his mission to Argentina three weeks ago! He told me it took him about 1.5 years to make the decision and start going to church again. But he has not regretted the decision, but he always wanted to talk to the missionaries who taught him and thank them. It was such a wonderful moment last night.
Even though we are on different sides of the world, I still felt like I was back in the living room at his grandmother's home. She is a wonderful woman. I am grateful for the light of the gospel and knowing that while it doesn't happen in the time we want, the right things do happen in God's time.
We are all an underdog in some sense. But if we will open our heart, we have the biggest cheerleader who is our Heavenly Father. And often if we will look up there are many more around us who are there to give support and help us up off our knees when we have fallen.
Maybe it is my gift. Maybe that is the reason I became a teacher. I don't really understand it all right now, but I know I have a special place in my heart for the underdog.
Keep the Light On
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