While on the beach on a beautiful September afternoon, I noticed a young Father working for hours on a sand sculpture.
I waited until he and his family were getting ready to leave the beach before I approached him and asked what he had created.

He said he had made half a lobster because of something his family had done earlier that day.

They had gone to a lobster pound, picked out the biggest lobster in the tank and paid $100 for it. Then they drove to Nauset Beach on Cape Cod and released it into the ocean.

I immediately thought of Loren Eisley’s beautiful parable about the little boy, the old man and hundreds of starfish. When the old man saw the little boy picking up starfish one at a time and throwing them back into the ocean, he said, “Son, don’t you know there are hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference.” The little boy, smiling up at the old man as he picked up another starfish and threw it back into the ocean, said, “I made a difference to that one.”

We are all born with special gifts God gives us… gifts that can make a huge difference in other people’s lives. As Mother Teresa said, “We don’t need to do great things. Just small things with great love.”

As I left the beach that evening, I smiled, thinking about the lesson that young Father taught me.

And I reflected on Taylor Hanson’s words:

“To the world, you may be one person. But to one person, you may be the world.”