"One conversation can change a life." - Meg Meyers, MAC '11
Sometimes moments strike you. Sometimes it's like a slap in the face, and sometimes it's like realizing that you're awake after slowing coming out of a dream. I find that I'm struck by the seemingly insignificant things that people say. Like the quote above - just one small sentence, part of a lecture I heard today on Child Abuse & Neglect. Hearing her say this made me re-realize that I want to have those conversations every day. I want to be in the business of enacting change in the world - to walk with others in the restoration process.
This lecture also re-awoke in me my desire to work with children & families who are caught in the traps of abuse, neglect, and poverty. Our speaker works for an organization very similar to the one I worked for during my last semester at William & Mary (Child Development Resources, aka CDR), and I could not help remembering how much I loved working there. There is so much that the counseling & social work community can do to prevent "big issues" like child abuse/neglect, domestic violence, substance abuse, and juvenile crime, and yet we spend so much time trying to clean up the mess after it's already happened. Restoration is not just an individual process, it's happening in families and communities and culture - and yet we shy away from working in these areas.
So if one conversation can change a life, how many lives do we affect every day? What if the conversation you are in right now is the one that will change the life of whoever it is you are talking to? Just something to think about.
No comments:
Post a Comment