Maybe one by one
We sat on the bunk beds in the converted church and we declared that we knew we wanted to change the world. That at 18 something in our hearts cried out for things to change, for the world to be different. For our decisions and our lives to mean more than just existence.This girl that I had known from the age of 8, and had argued with, cried with, laughed with and generally shared a lot of life with: we stood, facing the end of school and the end of life as we had known it and declared that we would, if we could change this world.Maybe it is something that everyone in my generation believes, or in every generation as they look towards the future and their 20's. But I haven't lost it; that thing inside me which claims that that is the goal in everything that I do. It is still the thing that keeps me awake at night while my brain ticks and ticks over.Maybe I won't reach each person in the world, maybe I won't be a household name, or change the way that everyone thinks about women, or the poor, or equality, or love. Maybe I won't be the one who's memory is lifted up when I die, my face on the front of every major newspaper and magazine (oh my days I think that would be the most terrifying thing ever, but then I would be dead).But then again maybe I can change one person's world; by the way I treat them, by learning how to best love them. Maybe I can change how they see themselves, by seeing them the way God created them to be seen. I might be able to change the world person by person. Giving all of myself to that cause and to that purpose. To seeing people loved the way they should be. Maybe my tiny voice can change some parts of this world, for His glory, for the better of all that exist...Maybe that is better than being a household name anyway...I don't think I am remotely the same person I was when I was 18. That version of me long disappeared, but her heart- the one desperate for the world to be a bit brighter, a bit more full of light. It is still here, deep set in my roots, in the core of me and who I am.R/