The Power of One

​​“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.” These words, spoken by Helen Keller, remind us just how much of an impact one person can make. 

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​Take, for example, Varian Fry. Fry, born in 1907, wasn’t a particularly fascinating man. However, he was smart, and when he decided to do something, it got done. However, Varian’s greatest accomplishment wasn’t a professional or personal one; it was life-saving godsend for a number of Europe’s greatest minds, including Max Ernst, Franz Werfel, and Heinrich Mann. An American journalist with no espionage experience, he went to France in 1940, where he and his associates helped save over two thousand Jews from the Nazis by furnishing them with false passports and other documents to allow them to escape.[1]
[1] https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005740

​If one person can make such a huge impact, imagine how much better the world could be if each person maximized his or her potential to make a positive difference in someone else’s life, whether friend or stranger. In the song “Change”, Carrie Underwood explores this concept, imagining what would happen if someone made an effort to give some loose change to a homeless woman and learn her story, or sponsor an impoverished child in a third world country after seeing an infomercial. While not all of us are called to or even able to give in the ways discussed above, the love of Christ is one thing that we will always be able to give to one another, no matter what the circumstance. Even more importantly, by allowing God to give us strength by filling us with the Holy Spirit, we are able become the healers of a broken world far beyond our wildest dreams. 

You are only one person, but when it comes to making a difference, you have the strength of a crowd. Try it.

Elizabeth Scheibl is a former intern and current Resident Supervisor at New Beginnings. She is still an English major and History minor at Wisconsin Lutheran College. In her spare time, she likes reading, writing, and standing on chairs and singing.

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