The Spoken Word "Finding a Niche"
Given by Lloyd D. Newell
February 15, 1998
One of the
most frustrating, but important,
aspects of
life's journey can be the search to find
our place
in this world. We all need to be
needed. We
want to serve, and we want to feel
as though
we've made a difference. We all
know that
we've been given talents, but too
often we
are at a loss as to how to use them.
Perhaps we
set our sights too high--hold
ourselves
to a standard beyond our capacity.
The niche
we find for ourselves may not
necessarily
be in the limelight. A talented
basketball
player can make a difference on the
floor whether
or not he or she ever plays
professional
basketball. A young musician may
never become
a Mozart, but he or she can still
bless the
world with the timeless gift of music.
Sometimes
it's enough to be a friend, listen
sympathetically
to a troubled heart, or offer
encouragement
when a neighbor is "having a
bad day."
One of the
great challenges of parenting can be
helping children
find their own sense of purpose
and hidden
talents. A father was near despair
over his
sullen, uncommunicative teenage son.
Day after
day the boy sat in his room listening to
music and
playing endless games on his
computer
that, to the father, offered little sense
of hope or
joy. He tried involving his son in
sporting
activities and other excursions that he
himself enjoyed--but
to no avail. The boy
seemed to
have given up completely. Then, one
day the father
discovered a poem the boy had
written.
He didn't read much poetry and couldn't
understand
what his son was trying to
communicate.
But the wise father realized that
perhaps this
might be a gift his son could and
should develop.
Instead of criticism and
rejection,
he offered words of encouragement
and was truly
pleased when one of his son's
poems was
accepted for publication. Although
the son's
talents and interests were different
from his
father's, they shared the same need for
acceptance
and accomplishment.
We owe it
to ourselves to discover our talents
and to find
opportunities to share them. And we
owe it to
our family, friends, and neighbors to
use our abilities
in helpful ways. Even when we
feel discouraged,
lonely, or sometimes useless,
we need to
remember that God has given each
of us great
potential. We all have a place in life
and in the
lives of those we love.