“Linda, if beating yourself up were an Olympic sport, you’d win a gold medal!”
Annabel, my close friend, stunned me with that frank observation after I told her how I had mishandled a situation with a student in a third-grade class where I was substituting. “I should never have let him go to the boy’s room without a pass! It was my fault he got into trouble with the hall monitor! I’m so stupid!”
My friend burst out laughing, and then made her “Olympic” comment. After a br
ief period of reflection I had to admit that she was right. I did put myself down an awful lot. Why, just during the previous day I had called myself “a slob” for having some papers spread out on my desk, “ugly” when I left the house without makeup and “an idiot” when I left the house for an emergency substitute job without my emergency lesson plan.
In a more reflective tone, Annabel said, “I once took a workshop at church where the woman in charge had us list all the mean things we say about ourselves.”
“How many did you have on your list?” I asked.
“Fifteen,” she confessed. “But then the teacher said, ‘Now turn to the person next to you and say all the items on your list as if you were speaking to that person!’ ”
My jaw dropped. “What did you do?”
“Nothing. Nobody did. We all just sat there, until I said, ‘I could never say these things to anyone else!’ ”
“And our teacher replied, ‘Well, if you can’t say them to anyone else, then don’t ever say them to yourself!’ ”
My friend had a point. I would never insult a child of God---and I’m God’s child, too!
God, today let me be as kind to myself as I would be to another of Your children.
小题1: What does Annabel mean by the first sentence of the passage?
A．The writer is a good athlete.
B．The writer scolds herself too much.
C．She is encouraging the writer.
D．A gold medal is not a big deal.小题2: What does the writer intends to tell us through the second and third paragraphs?
A．She has low self-esteem over some small things.
B．She often makes serious mistakes in daily life.
C．She is a third-grade teacher.
D．She cares too much about her appearance.小题3: We can infer that the underlined word “slob” might be _____.
A．something untidy
B．someone dangerous
C．something dirty
D．someone lazy小题4: What does the writer mean by the last sentence of the passage?
A．She is ready to turn to God for help.
B．She will be kind to all children.
C．She won’t insult herself as well as others.
D．She is willing to be a child of God.
