The World Needs You

One day I received a card in the mail from one of my best friends. A blue haired, purple clad lady on the front pointed her finger at me saying,”You better get well. There aren’t that many people I like.” She added a note. “Praying for you friend. Highly motivated. Get well soon.” And here’s the part that made me reel. “The world needs you and so do I.”

Her words stirred me, creating a longing, unspecified, and an argument in my head.

The world needs you.

Not me, I say. I have just a little to give, I say. I’m insignificant in the vastness of humanity’s six billion people. I think of the countless people solving world problems, giving and giving and giving in ways I don’t, can’t, ignore or don’t think of.

I am just me. But I stew.

The world needs you.

Often I’m mystified by how the things that move one person don’t move another and how the worldwide variety of what we care about and choose to pour our lives into meshes to meet needs like a staggeringly beautiful jigsaw puzzle circling the globe.

Some of us are lit up by social justice, others by one-on-one investments in others, or cooking or nonprofits or ministry or movements, business and education, worldwide clean water and the list goes on.

And yes, writing and radio and true stories for the world. Not all 6 billion, just those who catch what we throw out.

I  have something to give. You have something to give.

Go do what you do. Do what you care about.

The world needs you.