Making a difference

by Katherine Grasham, children, young people and families team member, Diocese of Leeds

HAVE you heard of The Starfish Story?

It tells the tale of starfish that have been washed up on a beach and are dying in the hot sun.

A little boy goes and starts throwing them back into the sea to save them.

An old man tells the boy that it’s no use – there are thousands of starfish and he won’t be able to make a difference.

The little boy picks up another starfish and throws it back into the sea, and says “it made a difference to that one.”

With the constant flow of depressing news stories from across the world, it can be really easy to start thinking that we can’t possibly make a difference in the world, but that’s not true. I refuse to believe that.

As a Christian, I am encouraged by the passage in the bible from Matthew 25, where Jesus tells the people around Him that at the end of days, they will be blessed for feeding and clothing Jesus. The people ask “when did we do this for you?” and Jesus tells them that whenever they did this for someone in need, they did it for Him.

I really believe the world can be changed by “ordinary” people, if there is such a thing.

When we make a positive difference to people around us, it can have a ripple effect that we may never see, but we can be assured that it IS making a difference. So what can you do today to change the world? It can be as simple as a smile, or inviting someone round for a cuppa. It might not feel like ground-breaking, world-changing stuff. But your contribution to the world is powerful.