Beneath the Layers

Dear Teacher,  

A homeowner in Boise, Idaho discovered 1,600 vintage baseball cards plastered directly onto a bedroom wall beneath layers of faux tile wallpaper during a renovation.  Melissa Brody bought a fixer-upper home for $324,000.  While stripping an ugly green wall, she uncovered a massive grid of baseball cards glued side-by-side in a 64 across and 25 down pattern.  

The cards were put up 30 years prior by a childhood resident named Chris Nelson.  The memorabilia was appraised by Leila Dunbar who noted that the collection has very little monetary value.  This is due to the heavy wall-glue damage and the mass-production "junk wax" era of 1980s sports cards.  However, rather than tearing them down, the homeowner decided to leave the card-covered wall intact as a unique piece of nostalgic art.

And you, Teacher, their in your classroom, are carefully peeling back the proverbial layers of your students' personalities to reveal the true value underneath.  You see what's already been formed within them -- their values, their heritage, their beliefs.  But you also see the damaged that's pasted in their souls -- the trauma, the doubt, the shame, the neglect.  You recognize that it's covered and hidden, with years of pretending and masking, so that the true value within them is undetectable.  

...That is, until YOU came along!  Then slowly, gently, patiently, you've pulled away the faux layers and gradually revealed what was underneath.  Once you've restored the Student Fixer-Uppers, you've made it known that what they are and Who is in them was written on the walls of their heart the whole time!
 

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.  And I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
~Jeremiah 31:33

Peeling layers with you,
Mindy
Christian Educator & School Counselor