Looking for the Good

It is lunch time at school and I have a short break before I finsih up my day. As my students were leaving and mylast class was dropping of books before they headed to lunch a thought crossed my mind and I needed to write it down.
How often when you are around someone that challenges you more than anything else do you count up the positive qualities in that person? Sometimes when I am around a person that pushes my buttons I find myself counting up all of the ways that person needs to change, or the reasons they are causing problems for themselves, the ways they are doing something wrong. Do you get the picture? of course I am not speaking these things out loud. (However I know people who do this when I am around them and they speak these thoughts out loud,...constructive critsim I believe it what they call it). Well yesterday i heard a man speaking on the radio about being there for your spouse. I thought about the way Darrel speaks with encouragement to me. He tells me about the good things I am doing, or something that he enjoys about me. I thought about my good friends, the women in my life that I can go to with anything and realized they do this to. Then last night, we read with Maggie, the story of Saul throwing a spear at David because of his jealousy. we talked about how our bad feelings toward someone (even constructive cristism) can feel like a spear being thrown at them. Fortunetly God was with David and he got out of the way. The only person truly hurt was Saul. God had left him and people were beginning to lose respect for him.
Then as I sat here in my classroom, trying to think of a way to enjoy the end of the year with my students I realized I needed to focus on their qualities that were pleasing, excellent, admirable, trustworthy, honest, and lovely (A scripture we focused on in church, hmmmm I am beginning to think God was speaking loud and clear!)So I made a list of my students and I began to write down some of their pearl like qualities. Of course, just like a pearl, some of these qualities started out like an irritating grain of sand but over the year I am beginning to see a more polished precious stone.
Lord I pray that I can look at the people in my life with eyes like yours. You see past my grainy, irritating exterior and you shape and mold me into a precious pearl. Thank you for the grace and love it takes to accomplish this. help me to look at the pearls in the ones I love!