The Value of the One

I think that sometimes, despite the very individualistic society in which we live, we manage to actually forget the individual. We forget the vast importance that one person's touch can have on one person's life, opting instead to strive to touch millions at once. That's why we all wish we could be famous singers and actors and writers, people who touch millions of lives every day. But when you think about it, it's really the individual that matters most.

There are some very important people that the world will never know. These are people that will never win a Nobel Peace Prize, never be on the front page of the newspaper signing over their billions to charity, never invent the cure for cancer or stop poverty. They are, however, the people that a certain percentage of the world would be destitute without.

I have so many people like that in my life, people who aren't famous and who don't have the ears of the governments, but people whose impact on my life has been profound. One such person, I just learned, passed away recently. Her name was Mari Ellen, and I knew her my sophomore and junior years at BFA. She was many different things to many different people, she was best friend and small group leader and sister and daughter, but to me she was my counselor. I met with Mari Ellen every week for a year and a half, and I honestly don't know what I would have done without her. I was at a place in my life where I just needed someone to talk to every week, someone who would listen to the word vomit that came out and not judge and not push. There was so much going on in my head that I needed to get out and process, and Mari Ellen was always there for me.

Until my sophomore year in high school, I told myself I would never ever go to a counselor, because I was convinced it was a sign of weakness. But it reached a point where I needed that, and Mari Ellen was the best person God could have put in my life at that time. She wasn't some shrink, some cold, detached person who listened to my problems and took notes and gave me formulas for change. She also wasn't my best friend, she didn't listen to me and then tell me what I wanted to hear. She was a combination friend and counselor, someone I could trust to tell my secrets to who would give me good solid feedback without pushing that I needed to "get better already." And by the time my junior year ended and she knew she wasn't going to be back the next year, she knew me well enough to not trust me to find a counselor on my own and instead forced me into it.

If it weren't for Mari Ellen, I wouldn't be where I am now. If it weren't for the two years I had with her I probably never would have been able to open up and share my problems and get help. She listened as I shared my deepest and darkest secrets; she was aware of the darkest side of me, and she showed me love unconditionally. That's a really powerful thing to do for a 16-year-old girl. To spend countless hours listening to her as she gives you all the reasons in the world to hate her, and love her instead, is an incredibly beautiful thing to do.

Mari Ellen wasn't famous; she didn't give millions of dollars to charity every year, she didn't preach the Gospel to hundreds of thousands every week, she didn't single-handedly bring Africa out of poverty. But she knew the power of the individual. I'm just one of the many people she's touched; I don't know how many other people out there today are thinking about how different their life would have been without her, but I do know that I can honestly say that her presence in my life was a gift from God, that she was a gift from God to me at a time when I really needed that. She was a good friend and a counselor all bundled up in one, and I don't think I can say enough how important she has been to me. And I didn't even know her that much; think of all the people she was closer to, the people who can call her "best friend" or "small group leader;" if her impact on me was that great, think of how immense it must have been on the ones she knew best.

I've always thought that to be successful I had to touch millions; but if knowing Mari Ellen has taught me one thing, it's that success isn't measured in how much you do or know, but how well you fulfill the calling God has given you. On those lines, Mari Ellen was one of the most successful people I know.