Blessed to Be Needed

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jun 8, 1911

Blessed to Be Needed

“No, I can’t go this vacation,” said the young teacher. “I’m the eldest daughter, you know; and when I’m out of school, there are endless things to be done at home. Mother isn’t very strong, help is hard to get and unreliable, and the children are always needing something.”

Was there a touch of impatience in her tone? Her friend, older by many years, watched the healthy, capable girl as she turned from one task to another,—ready to help father with the gathering-up and arranging of his papers, deftly tying bows and managing refractory buttons for the little ones, then donning a big apron for the kitchen and “the gingerbread that nobody makes like Mollie.” The whole household turned to her. “O you fortunate girl!” said the friend between a smile and a sigh. “I wonder if you realize that the most blessed thing in all this world is to be needed and be able to supply the need.”

There are many who could understand the full meaning of her words better than Mollie did. It is not the busy days, the many demands, love’s incessant calls, that bring the heartache, but the lonely days that come later. We often look forward to the thought of being “free to live our own life,” and long for leisure; but it is only when years or change have brought the coveted gift, that we fully realize how blessed it was to be needed—to have eager eyes turn to us, trusting hearts depend on us, trembling hands seek ours for support. Life’s busiest time is the very time of our human life that Christ chose for his own in this world, and there can be no greater mission than that on which he came—“not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”—Forward.