In this world of billions of human beings, I am often overwhelmed by the thought that I am only one of the many, that I am too insignificant to matter, that there is nothing I can do to make a difference. At the same time, there is this firm belief and strong feeling in me that the universe was created because of me, that if I were the only person in the universe God would still have created the stars and the moon and earth and Christ would still have come to save me.
Only a small fraction of the people in the world actually know me, at most several hundreds. Yet, for each one of them I am the one and, in some cases, the only one. For Jane and Jonathan, there is only one Lolo in their young lives. For Martin, Mickey and Macky, there is only one Papa in their journey through life. For Anabelle, there is only one real hero to have rescued her from boredom and wrote her long and many a love letter. For friends, I am the one friend who . . . . For people I have worked with, I am the one colleague whom they will remembered as the one who . . . .
This realization makes me feel proud and humble at the same time: proud to be someone special in others people’s lives; humble to be counted on to deliver something only I can give into another person’s life. I live my life one day at a time. I give what I can, one gift at a time and one person at a time. Let me not hurry in my giving to each one, relishing the presence of the other moment by moment. But let me not tarry either in giving what I was meant to give to others.
Jesus said to his disciples: “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”