I continue to be impressed by the Chick-Fil-A Desire to Inspire program I attended with some of the guys this last Thursday. It was an enjoyable time with friends at a nice large local church with some very good words spoken by some charitable folks.
Leigh Anne Tuohy told one of my favorite stories during her talk. I first heard it during the Hurricane Katrina clean up mission trip to Mississippi in 2006. While the version was a bit different, the point is just as impactful.
After one of the gulf shore storms, a young boy and his grandfather were down walking along the beach looking for shells. As they walked along, they noticed starfish upon starfish that had washed up on the shore. Without being in the water they would all soon die.
The little boy put down his shells and started picking up starfish and throwing them back into the ocean. He would pick one up, look at it, and then throw it as far as he could into the ocean. One by one he did this, repeatedly.
His grandfather looked at him bewildered. He finally said something to his grandson.
“Why are you throwing those starfish into the ocean? Can’t you see that there are THOUSANDS of starfish stranded on the beach. You can’t save them all. Save your energy and look for shells. You can’t make a difference.”
“The little boy looked at his grandfather, picked up a starfish, threw it into the water, and said “I just made a difference to THAT one”.
Leigh Anne went on to encourage everyone to get involved in their local communities to find starfish that are falling between society’s crack and “throw them back into the water”.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
