Be the Light in Someone’s Dark World

Let light shine out of darkness.
            —2 Corinthians 4:6

He left his San Francisco apartment, walked to the Golden Gate Bridge, and jumped to his death. He was thirty-one years old.

A suicide letter on the dresser in his apartment said, “I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I won’t jump.”

I wonder how many people he passed on his way to the bridge—any one of whom could have saved his life with a smile.

Being ignored is rejection. It hurts. Loneliness can be a fatal disease. It probably kills more people than cancer.

Today let it be your smile, your “hello,” that is the light in someone’s dark world.

Be the one who sees—and cares.

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