In high school, we were required to take a basic chemistry course.
And had I been given any choice in the matter, I would have literally run the other way…😩.
Unfortunately, I was not afforded that option. 😂
In the fall of 1999, when I received a copy of my 10th grade class schedule, my eyes anxiously scanned the page for the chemistry course…and that’s when my heart sank:
Dr. Bertram. 😱
Of all the chemistry teachers I could’ve been assigned to, it had to be him.
I had never met him before, but I knew exactly who he was…and to say his reputation preceded him was an understatement. At our high school, Dr. Bertram was nothing short of an urban legend.
Let’s see…how can I describe him??? 🤔
He was old. Short. Slightly plump. He had gray hair and wore silver-rimmed glasses.
Sounds a lot like Santa Claus, right?
But the thing is, he wasn’t like Santa at all. — In fact, he was more like…the Grinch.
As the bell rang on the first day of class, we all sat anxiously in our seats as Dr. Bertram sauntered to the front of the room, his eyes fixed on the paper roster that was haphazardly stuck to the front of his clipboard.
One-by-one, he annoyedly called out our names for attendance.
He only raised his head long enough to glare back at each one of us in a long awkward moment of disgusted silence…I felt a little shiver go up my spine.
Then, without uttering a single word, he took a brand-new piece of white chalk from the ledge and vigorously wrote his name on the chalkboard.
Slowly turning to face the class again, I thought he was about to speak — but instead he did something I’ll never forget.
Rather than placing the chalk back on the ledge, he proceeded to shove the entire thing into his mouth like it was some kind of a mid-morning snack or something…😧🤭😱😱😳
With every bite, he slowly pulverized that entire snow-white piece of chalk between his coffee-stained teeth until he finally ended his charade with the BIGGEST, LOUDEST belch I’ve ever heard in my entire life (…and I live with three boys.)
Some of my classmates began to snicker, while others gasped aloud — but all I could do was sit there in stunned silence.
It was…wow…just wow. 🤯
I suppose he intended for this disturbing stunt to be some sort of a first-day “ice-breaker,” but suddenly the classroom felt even chillier than before.
It was our first lesson in chemistry and a foray into what was awaiting us the rest of the semester.
Thankfully, the next few weeks passed uneventfully…but then one day about mid-semester, we took a test.
The following Monday, he handed us our grades. I had passed — but not by much. I had been struggling with balancing chemical equations all quarter and it showed.
As we looked over our graded papers, Dr. Bertram began writing out an equation on the board. I grabbed my notebook, thinking we were about to begin the lesson for the day, but instead, pointing to the board he looked at the class and sneered, “What kind of a IDIOT writes this as their answer?” 😳😳😳
More angry and abusive words spewed from his mouth after that — but my brain could no longer hear them…my face was flushed and my eyes were filling with tears as I slowly slumped down into my seat, praying that no one would notice my intense mortification.
The equation he wrote on the board…that was MY answer. I was the idiot. 😔
I don’t remember exactly how I made it through the rest of that class period…or the rest of that day…or even the rest of that semester, but I can tell you that I didn’t give up.
And what I ended up learning that semester was less about chemistry than it was about life:
#1: There’s two sides to every story.
- You see, for all the negative things that Dr. Bertram had to say about me, there were a dozen other teachers that had nothing but good things to say about me — hard-worker, intelligent, talented, disciplined, kind, a team player.
- Two completely different perspectives on the same exact person! It was up to me which one I was going to believe.
#2: Knowledge is not the same as wisdom.
- Dr. Bertram might’ve had a PhD in chemistry, but just because someone is smart, doesn’t mean they’re always right.
- I mean, he definitely wasn’t right about me — I may have had the wrong answer to that test question, but I wasn’t an idiot. In fact, I ended high school with a GPA above 4.0 and finished in the top 1% of my graduating class.
#3: It’s important to consider the source.
- Dr. Bertram’s cruel words stung, it’s true. But when I stepped back to consider just who those words were coming from, suddenly they didn’t carry quite as much weight.
- You see, he came to a conclusion about me without really taking the time to get to know me — at least not like my family and my friends know me. And therefore, I wouldn’t consider him as reliable of a source as they are.
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As we run our Christian race — we are all guaranteed to run into some “Dr. Bertram’s” of our own.
They’re the ones who say things like, “What kind of an idiot would believe that Jesus is the Son of God!?!”
Words like that can sting — and they can also dishearten us when they write their supporting “evidence” on the board so-to-speak. But I think it would be good for us all to remember that when we have these encounters with nay-sayers, unbelievers, and even atheists, to remember:
#1: There’s two sides to every story.
- For every every unbelieving opinion out there, you can find a dozen others who believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. With over 2 billion other believers in the world, in numbers Christianity is still the world’s “#1” religion— you are not alone.
- Once again, it simply boils down to a matter of two completely different perspectives on the same exact person. It’s up to us which one we choose to believe — both require a leap of faith in their own right.
#2: Knowledge is not the same as wisdom.
- Just because someone who is smart enough to earn a PhD doesn’t believe there is a God, doesn’t mean he/she is right. In fact, there are some really intelligent people in the world who believe in Jesus Christ and there are some who don’t. They can’t both be right, right?
- Consider this, at one time in history even the world’s brightest scholars believed the world was flat…
- Scripture says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” – Proverbs 9:10
#3: It’s important to consider the source.
- It stings to hear others belittle your beliefs — but you have to consider the source.
- All of the people around us today are at least 2000 years removed from Christ — and so are their theories and opinions of Him.
- But yet the scriptures were eye-witness accounts written by those who walked with Jesus Christ while He was right here on this earth — they were the ones who knew Jesus best. If we’re believers, we’ll also know that those texts were inspired by His Heavenly Father, God Himself (II Timothy 3:16-17)
When I first started my 10th grade year, I had no idea that I would be so verbally assaulted in chemistry class. I was unprepared for the attack.
But the Bible actually predicted that we who believe would experience persecution (Matthew 5:10) and that there would be those who consider the message of the cross “foolishness” (I Corinthians 1:18) — so when you run into these stumbling blocks in your Christian race, consider it par for the course.
But don’t let the curmudgeons of the world get you down. Keep the faith.
“…without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” -Hebrews 11:6
Despite what others say, I choose to keep the faith. My faith has come from reading the scriptures (Romans 10:17). It is by reading those accounts that you can come to know about God, and by doing what the scriptures say, you can enter into a relationship with Him and know God.
When you have a personal relationship with someone like that, it’s hard to believe some random stranger’s opinion about them over your own.
I believe there is a God — one God, Yahweh. And I believe Jesus Christ is His Son, who was sent to earth to die on a cross for our sins that we might have a hope of eternal life in Heaven. (John 3:16)
But don’t take MY word for it — consider the source — God’s revealed Word, the Bible.
Until next time…
-PWAP