Today's New Friend is Tomorrow's Family

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Today I was watching television while making Dan's birthday cake (I'm writing this on his birthday).  A character in the show was sad because she couldn't be "good enough".  She couldn't fix all that she wanted to fix.  No matter how hard she worked at helping others, there were still so many hard things people were dealing with that she couldn't fix.

Of course, there really is no way for any of us to be "good enough" to solve all of the problems that others have, no matter how much we love those people.  That really is what God is for.  But I did like what another character said.  He said that she wasn't taking into account "the end game".  When she asked what that meant, she was told that she could not see how much difference she made over time by the things she did.  He then proceeded to take out of his wallet a fortune she had given him the day they met that said, "Today's new friend is tomorrow's family".  She had given it to him because she wanted him to be counted as her family, and it had meant something to him.

Of course this was a fiction story and yet it is true that we cannot see the long term effects of our actions.  Perhaps the smile we gave someone got passed along to hundreds of people by the end of the day.  Perhaps the text we sent let someone feel cared about when they were lonely.  Maybe that phone call we made lifted someone's spirits so that they were able to lift those around them.  We just don't know what good we may do, and so it is good to keep trying, even if, on any given day, we think we are not enough.  And perhaps, as we work to make a difference, we will make new friends who will be like family.