A reading from the Second Letter to Timothy:
For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you…; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power of love and of self-discipline.
The course that gave me the most trouble in high school was grade 11 chemistry. The content just intimidated me. Moreover, I had classmates who always got 90s. I started to compare myself to them and started to believe that I was stupid. So I simply stopped trying. However, that changed with one interaction with my teacher.
By Tim Gouw from Unsplash.com
We were taking up homework and my teacher asked me to answer a question. “Sorry, I didn’t do it.” I replied. Instead of me telling me something along the lines of “as long as you tried your best” she looked at me with disappointment on her face and said, “No, I’m sorry.”
Her response triggered something in me. I got sick of feeling sorry for myself and believing I was stupid. I’m going to prepare for the next test until I get it.