There’s a short story I remember reading in high school about a mid-school pre-teen, Sandy, who had extremely low self-esteem. She avoided classmates like they were the plague. She felt ugly and just wanted to disappear. Then one day her mother gave her a hair clasp with pretty flowers attached to it. Sandy thought it was the prettiest thing she’d ever seen. The next morning she couldn’t wait to wear it. As she entered the school, she held her head high, and carried a smile that wouldn’t quit. Her classmates gradually responded with friendly smiles as if she were the new girl in school.

She left school that afternoon, feeling on top of the world. As she got home, she quickly went to her room to look in the mirror, since she hadn’t taken the time at school. When she quickly noticed the clasp was gone, she screamed and ran downstairs and out the front door to see if it had fallen on the sidewalk.

Her mother heard the commotion and found her frantically searching for the clasp. She asked what she was looking for, and when Sandy told her, she reached in her apron pocket and said, ‘You mean this? You dropped it when you were going out the door this morning.’ So, what valuable lesson did Sandy learn?

Sandy had renewed her self-worth when she thought she was pretty with the new clasp. But when she began reviewing the whole day, she realized her smiles and friendly attitude had changed her inner feelings about herself and also how those around her responded to her friendliness.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of how I felt when I learned Someone died on the cross for my sins and rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven. Belief and acceptance of this gift of salvation will allow me to one day enter Heaven. This belief changed my attitude about myself in my late teens. I felt confidence that I’d never experienced before. I spent the next 60 years teaching classes in churches to all ages because I remembered how easily one’s self-esteem can be challenged. The Bible stories should be the most exciting, beautiful stories ever told.

Suicide is at an all-time high especially for the youth because of a lack of knowledge of what the Bible teaches about the value of every human being and how we should treat one another. Archeologists continue to dig up artifacts to prove events of the Bible are true. It’s a shame that historical facts from the Bible is not taught in all educational institutions.

Change comes only when we begin to think radically differently, or as Paul, in the Bible, puts it when we are ‘transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ Such renewal, he said, is revolutionary. It’s radical. it is based on proving ‘what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God,’ Romans:12:2.

Psalm 51:10 states, ‘Create in me a new heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in me.’ When you surrender your heart to the Lord, you make the most serious and positive CHANGE.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ‘If I cannot do great things, I can do SMALL things in a great way.’

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot. C.S Lewis said, ‘You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a NEW DREAM.’

‘Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you’ll land among the stars,’ said Norman Vincent Peale.

So, sometimes change makes us uncomfortable, or it can change our lives for the better. And, sometimes it surprises us by giving us a new perspective on things. We need to learn to be more flexible in order to grow in wisdom.

I’ll end with a quote from Anne Frank (Diary of a Young Girl), who didn’t survive the Holocaust: ‘When there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage to make us stronger again.’ What she didn’t know was that these words would continue to live and encourage others.