One day, while walking along a beach, a man noticed what seemed to be thousands of starfish – which were dependent on being in the ocean for survival – washed up upon the sandy shore.

As he looked further, he saw a young boy picking up one of the starfish and throwing it back into the ocean. Then he would bend over, reach down, pick up another starfish and throw it back into the ocean. His act seemed futile and insignificant as it paled before the seeming mountain of starfish that was set before him.

As the man approached, he said to the little boy, "Do you really think you are going to make a difference? There's a lot of starfish here." As the boy threw another starfish into the ocean he said, "Well, it made a difference to that one."

How often do you look at your relationship, or even your life, and think to yourself that there's just too many issues to deal with?

It's fairly normal to sometimes feel overwhelmed with life, and it's certainly not uncommon. When William was dealing with his many issues, I also had to go through them with him or at least face them. I got so overwhelmed at times I felt like packing it all in. I used to sometimes ask myself if it was all worth it.

The problem was not so much the problems themselves. It was more that I was looking at them all at once.

I needed to be more like the young boy who picked one starfish up at a time and gave it life. I needed to take one issue at a time, and breathe life into by working through it with William. Sometimes the issues were his, sometimes mine, sometimes those of my kids.

You will always have issues to deal with in life and they seldom come one at a time, especially if you're raising a family. Only work on the quantity of issues you can handle, and only you know how many that is. Even if it's just one, you're still moving forward.

Be like the little boy with the starfish. Pick one issue at a time and make a difference.

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