ValueSpeak
A Weekly Column
By
A LITTLE SHOT OF APPRECIATION
On the surface, it appeared that Nicole had everything in the world
going for her.
By any standard of measurement, she was a beautiful young woman. She had
a bright, buoyant, bubbly personality that endeared her to teenagers and adults
alike. She had lots of friends, and they were active in lots of different
things. And she was deeply devoted to her faith.
When you saw Nicole you smiled, mostly because she was almost always
smiling her happy, infectious smile. That's just the way she was, and that’s
how she made others feel: happy.
At least, that's how it appeared.
But deep inside, she was crying.
Nicole has Attention Deficit Disorder, (ADD), a
neurological problem that is a learning disability. No matter how hard she
tried to keep up in her classes, her mind just wouldn’t make many of the
conceptual connections that other students made without even trying. She could
understand what was being taught at any particular moment in time; she just
couldn’t put it together with other concepts to form a logical sequence of
thoughts or events.
And that made school pretty traumatic for her, and incredibly
frustrating. She tried hard to keep up – or to at least cover her lack of
understanding – but that just made her anxious, stressed and, often, depressed.
Self-esteem is usually the first victim in a battle with ADD. Of course, only
her family saw this side of her. She managed to keep up a happy, cheerful front
among her friends at school, but her family saw the toll it was taking on her
soul.
Her junior year of high school was especially challenging, and the whole
family was suffering. They tried family counseling, and it helped a little. But
as the start of Nicole's senior year approached, the now-familiar feeling of
pressure and dread began building, and the family geared up for one more year.
One night while Nicole was out with friends, Hannah, her then-16-yea-old
sister, felt an overwhelming desire to communicate her feelings to Nicole. She
took a notebook and sat on the front porch and began writing all the things she
admired about her big sister, and expressed her appreciation for the important
role she had played in her life. Love and heartfelt gratitude flowed onto the
paper, and then Hannah stuffed it into an envelope and placed it on Nicole's
pillow.
When Nicole came home, she had an attitude (parents of teenagers know
exactly what I'm talking about). The night had not been particularly pleasant,
and she just wanted to retreat to her room. She closed the door firmly behind
her. Within moments her door burst open and she rushed to Hannah's room, tears
streaming down her face and Hannah's letter clutched in her hand.
"You saw the prayer I wrote, didn't you?" Nicole said
tearfully as she embraced her sister.
"No," Hannah replied through her own tears. "I didn't
know you wrote a prayer."
Nicole showed her sister what she had written in her journal earlier
that day: "Dear God, all I want is for somebody to appreciate me for who and what I am. That's all I want."
It's amazing what a little shot of sincere appreciation can do for
someone lacking in the self-esteem department. Within a few weeks Nicole was
standing in front of 600 peers at a youth retreat, publicly acknowledging her
struggle with ADD and expressing appreciation to Hannah – and to God. And while
I won't say that her senior year was easy, she made it. Today she is a beautiful young mother, with a
great family and some excellent possibilities ahead of her. It is looking once again like she has
everything in the world going for her.
Whether or not she actually does.
— ©
E-mail Joseph
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