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Today I need to be inspired, and I've found that the best way to feel inspired is to inspire, so I'll share this story with you. Just please remember that the only way it will inspire you is to read it through. Most often, the inspiration comes at the end of things, and my story is no different. It all began in a dark, gloomy classroom that I taught in.

As a high school teacher who tried to teach English to those students whom the public school system described as having, "special needs," I thought I'd seen everything. My students could not have cared less about how to communicate more effectively, at least that's what their mood told me. Still, of all the students who had special needs, there was one girl whose needs seemed to exceed my expertise. Ashley filled the room with doom and gloom, every day and in every way.

She was so filled with hate that she wore the same t-shirt every day that expressed her essence better than any essay that I knew to assign to her. "I don't discriminate, because I hate everyone." Mostly when I looked at Ashley, I knew that deep inside, the only soul she hated was her own. I tried everything I knew how to make her smile, just once, but the last day of school arrived and she'd never even cracked a glimpse of a grin.

I don't know why, she of all my students, captured my attention so much that it became my mission to make her smile just once. When the last day of school finally arrived, I knew that I had to make it count. Chances were good that Ashley would never return to school when the summer months came to and end. The last day, I had to find divine intervention. Nothing I could teach on the last day of school would be more important to me than to see a ray of light in those dark, dull eyes.

I had no clue of what to do to produce the miracle it would take to bring a smile to that gloomy girl's face, so I went to bed with thoughts of Ashley twirling around in my head. When I woke up that morning, to my surprise, my clock radio was waking me up with a song from my past by Johnny Nash. "I can see clearly now," was always one of my favorite songs. That song could always cheer me up, no matter what. He sang about the rainbow that finally came, once the dark clouds went away, and the upbeat rhythm made me want to sing along with him, even before I got out of bed.

"That's it," I said to myself. It just had to work. I'd play that old song from my time and surely Ashley would smile. Who could listen to anything like that song and not feel

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