The Legend of the Starfish
A vacationing businessman was walking along a beach when he saw a young boy.
Along the shore were many starfish that had been washed up by the tide and were sure to die before the tide returned.
The boy walked slowly along the shore and occasionally reached down and tossed the beached starfish back into the ocean.
The businessman, hoping to teach the boy a little lesson in common sense, walked up to the boy and said, “I have been watching what you are doing, son. You have a good heart, and I know you mean well, but do you realize how many beaches there are around here and how many starfish are dying on every beach every day. Surely such an industrious and kind hearted boy such as yourself could find something better to do with your time. Do you really think that what you are doing is going to make a difference?”
The boy looked up at the man, and then he looked down at a starfish by his feet. He picked up the starfish, and as he gently tossed it back into the ocean, he said, “It makes a difference to that one”.
-Author Unknown
In preparation for our trip to Uganda I have been reading lots of information about the country. I recently finished a book entitled Kisses from Katie. It is about a young women who ends up living and serving in Uganda as well as adopting fourteen children. It is an amazing story and I highly recommend it.
Kisses from Katie strongly resonated with me and the “Legend of the Starfish” has also helped to clarify some of the thoughts and feelings that I have been experiencing recently. Here is a young woman in an indescribably impoverished nation surrounded by death, disease, and war. Yet she helps one person at a time and by doing so has changed a community just as the little boy continued to save individual starfish even though another one would wash up onto the beach and take its place.
Sadly, I have been acting like the businessman. I feel so suffocated by the brokenness in this world: death, disease, war, hunger, and a myriad other problems too complex to even begin to unravel I have felt like I am sinking. I have begun to feel quite apathetic and wonder at times why I should even bother to try to make this world a better place at all. I have been reminded why I am to keep trying.
While I may not be super human and I may not be able to save humanity from itself I can try to save just one. It is enough. And to that one it matters.
