The Double Sided Mirror

Last week in my graduate class, we were able to watch an amazing Reading Recovery teacher work with one of her students. We were watching behind a glass mirror (like you see on all the cop shows) - we could see the teacher and student, but the student had no idea we could see him. He was a first grader that had been the lowest in his class at the beginning of the year, and this teacher had worked with him every morning at 7:30 until 8:05 doing the framework lessons of Reading Recovery, which is an AMAZING program that I wish more schools had, but that's a whole other issue...

As we were watching this sweet child read and write with such confidence and even joy, I looked around and the other teachers. We all could not help ourselves when he was reading or spelling a sight word - we were all cheering him on and acted as if one lean of us might actually help him. It was actually pretty funny as we tried to encourage someone who didn't even know we were there. Then I got to thinking of how that related to life. How many people are behind a "glass" with God watching them not even knowing Him? There God is, cheering people on and wanting so much for them to success and some don't even know He's there.

At the end of the lesson the Reading Recovery teacher took the student across to our room so he could see we had all been watching him. He was exiting the program the very next day, so he only had one more lesson in the mirrored room anyway. The look on his face when he realized exactly what had gone on was priceless! At first it was confusion, then this huge smile came on his face and he said, "Did you see how good of a reader I was?" I imagine a non-believer finally realizing that God has been in their lives, just waiting for them to come to the other side of the mirror and realize He has been there watching and waiting. Some of us take a little longer to "exit the program" and make that progress, but after that we are fill with knowledge and joy for the rest of our life! This just convicts me more to share the joy of Jesus with those who don't know Him. Obviously I can't be the one to move them across to the other side of the glass - that comes from within that person's heart, but maybe, just maybe, I can be like that teacher - showing someone the way to the answers.