YouthFire Blog

Show love. BE love. I don’t care if that love comes from your conscience, Christ, Buddha, Mohammad, your coming Messiah…I don’t care. Be love. We need it now, we need it always, we need it more every day.

I blogged a couple times already about just getting out and doing the things we ought to do. However, sometimes I think that we get into the trap thinking that if we do one thing, we have to do everything.

I remember a point in my life where I wouldn’t pray. I was SO afraid I’d forget to pray for someone that I just wouldn’t pray for anyone. Isn’t that absurd?

Mother Teresa said, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” We can’t feed the entire world, but we can do what we we can.

In the movie Ever After, Prince Henry says, “I used to think, if I cared at all, I would have to care about everything…and I’d go stark raving mad. But…now I’ve found my purpose.” I think it’s important to find a purpose rather than wandering around aimlessly wondering what we should do, and in the end, not get anything done because we’ve been wandering around for so long.

There’s a story about making a difference one thing at a time. Here it is:

A young man was jogging on the beach one morning when he saw an old man ahead of him bending down and picking up starfish and throwing them into the sea one by one. As he came close the young man asked, “What are you doing?” The old man answered, “There was a storm last night and many starfish were washed high up onto the beach. If I don’t throw them back, the sun will kill them by noon.” The young man laughed and said, “You are a fool old man. The beach is miles long and there are thousands of starfish stranded on it. You can’t get to them all before the sun dries them out and kills them. What you are doing, old man, just doesn’t matter.” The old man threw another starfish into the safety of the waves and said, “It mattered to that one!”

We can make a difference, one step at a time. It all adds up, even if you can only help one person or only donate one dollar or only do one of something. Just do what you can. You might not be able to save everyone or everything, but you can save something, and that’s what matters.