The Most

A question posed by one of my friends.

“What does the person who means most to you actually mean to you?
Think of the person who means most to you, then ask yourself why? or what? What is it that makes a person more dear to you than others, even the others who are very dear to you?”


It’s difficult to say what a person means to me, since the very term meaning is what we use to describe a person’s value to us. When someone is of great value to you, they mean a lot to you. That word, “to mean,” is the word that precedes just how much a person is worth.

How do you measure a person’s value in your life? How do you attach a price to them and call them “the person who means most” to you?

There are many people in my life who mean a lot to me. Each of them has their own unique values, their own weight of importance, their own species of worth, which makes the question not “what do they mean to you,” or “what makes them the most dear,” for those questions are inapplicable. The people who mean most to me, mean the most to me in entirely different ways.

And who, if they are truly blessed by God, can claim that only one person means the very most to them? I find that I cannot describe a single person whose existence means so much more to me than anyone else’s. The only being who can claim that kind of a position is Christ, and He isn’t really in the same league. The others, however, those who have some sort of value to me, are dear to me due to their characters. They are the people who I have had the opportunity to be with during some of the hardest times of both of our lives. They are the people whose potentials I have been able to see a long ways off, and watched them grow into it through every storm God threw at them. They are the people who have been able to trust me and whom I have been able to trust. They are the people who I know best, and that is simply it. It is not necessarily because they are better people, or because they are more talented people. It is solely because I know them best, and they know me best. And in such relationships, you become dear to one another by honing one another’s character.

Maybe it’s even simpler than that. Maybe it’s the exchange. Maybe it’s the idea that you have become indebted to them for everything they have become to you. Like, a mother. A mother is bound to love you unconditionally, and no matter how much she wants to throw you out or scream and rip her hair out and stop spending money on you, she doesn’t, and you are therefore indebted to her. Furthermore, she not only refrains from doing all those things to you, but she does love you and gives you shelter, speaks to you softly, keeps her hair in place (lol) and spends money on you. Not only does she not react strongly and harshly to every wrong deed of yours, but she actually takes the time to teach you how to behave and act in society, teaches you kindness and gentleness, and how to deal with difficult people. You are indebted to her, and she has become invaluable to you.

Maybe that’s not so simple after all.

Well, that’s my response.