Who Will Stand Up For Me

Some people I know recently organized a fun run for a mutual friend who is (still) battling with cancer.   I am not a runner but I thought I might go and help out in some way.  Then I realized the run was in the morning and my son had a tennis tournament that afternoon.  Not impossible but logistically challenging.  But I still really wanted to help.  I hope that one day there is someone who cares enough about me to organize a fun run and when they do I hope that there will be enough volunteers to help.  It's the Paying It Forward concept that I have posted about previously.  But it also reminds me of a poem in the book "I Am Malala" which I recently re-read:

They came for the Communists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Communist;

They came for the Socialists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Socialist;

They came for the labor leaders, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a labor leader;

They came for the Jews, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Jew;

Then they came for me - And there was no one left to object.

Martin Niemoller, German Protestant Pastor, 1892-1984