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Y Am I Important? by Peggy Lively Recently, an unlikely source reminded me of an important Biblical principle. Somehow the Y key came loose and fell off my keyboard. Underneath, where the letter once sat, was a very small rubber circle that if you pressed just the right way and hard enough, it would still produce the letter Y on my page. The problem was that this usually involved poking it very hard, so that I got not only one Y, but I would end up with "yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" going across my page. I would get so frustrated, because this really slowed me down, breaking any real train of thought I had going. It took me twice as long to type something as it normally would. As I struggled with my missing letter, I realized how important that one letter was. I just couldn't continue typing/writing without it. You would think that with 25 other letters in the alphabet that missing just one wouldn't be that big of a deal. But as I found out, it was a very big deal. I thought about even my own name without the letter Y; it becomes Pegg Livel. Every letter is important and vital to our language. Without one, it completely changes the message that is trying to be conveyed; and if it stands alone (yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy) it means nothing. This reminded me of the body of Christ and how each one of us is important and necessary for the body to function and serve the way that it is supposed to. Just as no one letter is more important than the others, not one of us is more important to the body of Christ than the others. We have to work together to fulfill God's purposes. We cannot stand alone, or our message looks as ridiculous as "yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" looks on a page. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. (Romans 12:4-5) The Bible also reminds us that the body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ...Now the body is not made up of one part but many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" (I Corinthians 12:12-21) We are all needed, necessary to convey the message of salvation to the lost and to minister effectively in the name of Christ. What part of the body of Christ are you? Don't waste time wishing you were another part, that you had different gifts and different weaknesses; we need you to make the body whole. We will definitely notice if you are having trouble; as I was reminded by my laptop, it is a big deal to be missing just one part of the whole. And go easy on the other parts; we are all equally valuable to the body. We can't say, "I don't need you." When we all do our part and honor each other, we will convey the beautiful message of a Savior that loves us.