Sometimes I forget that people need me.

Wait.
Strike that.
Let me try again...

At all times, I forget that people need me.

Me?
Of all people?
Who makes little to no difference in the lives of the people who know me (to whatever extent)?

Why would people need me?

An incident happened at my job the other day which involved a regular customer of old age who ended up needing help with his physical health, and a coworker told me to go to that customer and check on them because they needed me.
(Let me note that this customer makes my job a pretty much regular stop in his life routine, and I'm the one he seeks out because he's taken to me and I take the time to listen and care for him to the best of my abilities.)
When my coworker told me that our customer "needed me," it was a concept so foreign, it made the cogs in my brain stop because I was unable to process that bit of information.

I guess there are several factors that play into my mindset regarding this.

For one, I have lived the past long, several years of my life trying to not need people.  Forging myself to be fiercely independent, to learn things on my own, to not depend on anyone or any thing, because at the end of the day, it's still just me.  And I can only fully rely on myself.  Other people will - ultimately - always fail me, intentionally or not, because they are human, and that is how life goes. 

At the same time, I think each person out there was created for a wonderful and unique purpose, and there is beauty in that.  And I find joy in building people up, encouraging them to try things out that will help better them or reach their goal(s) or face their fears.  People hold the ultimate value in my mind, and while I may not personally get along with them (or even like them), I still think they are valuable and priceless and worth fighting for. 

But I do not think that how I treat people and how I invest in them (personal feelings aside) determines that I am needed by them.  I imagine that if I went out of their life the next day, that their lives wouldn't change at all, other than I would become that person that they "used to know." 

 A need is a necessity.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this.  But this has been on my mind the past couple of days ever since that incident at work happened.  And I'm still processing the idea of people "needing" me.  As foreign and strange and fake as that sounds.

Honestly, I still don't believe it.  And I'm not sure I ever will.  Because people don't need me.  I'm not that special or significant or important.  People need Jesus.  They need His grace and His mercy and His Love and His peace and His patience.  They need Him to know how magnificently and incredibly they are Loved.  And how fearfully and wonderfully they are made.  But they don't need me.

This post, like most others, is kind of useless.  Just a space to process thoughts still roaming around in my head; with me trying to capture the essence of them on a computer screen.  Perhaps I will think about this more.  Perhaps I will let it go after this posts.

I guess I'll see.