I have a young friend, age 7, who has roots on three continents. He has only been speaking English for a little over a year. While his accent is more or less American, he speaks with a precision that is seldom found in our young people.
Yesterday, I was speaking with him after school. He was enjoying a yogurt drink. He threw the cap in the trash. (Our school collects plastic bottle caps which get recycled and the proceeds are donated to provide wheelchairs for children.) I said to him, Don’t you want to save that for the collection? He gave me a look like it would be way too much trouble to fish it out of the trash and carry it (20 steps!) to the kitchen.
I said, They use those for wheelchairs for children.
He said, in his precise English, What is a wheelchair?
It’s a chair for children who can’t walk. Like Isaac (my son).
He said, No they do not! That is too small!
I explained to him that they don’t use the actual caps, but the money they earn from them to help provide wheelchairs for children.
It was a funny moment, but it made me think. How often do I think that things are too small to bother with. My little bottle cap makes no difference. I might as well just throw it away.
Not true.
Not true with things. Not true with people.
What I have and what I am is enough. God promised me so. I just need to give it faithfully, diligently, even when 20 steps feels like too much of a bother.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes:
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. – Edmund Burke
Here’s another:
I do it for Jesus. – Mother Theresa
