Ripples….

 Ripples….

One of the last pictures I have of my husband was taken in the mountains near our home….we had been having a discussion about ripples and their effect…not just in the water, but in our lives…how by doing one thing it ripples out to others…

We took picnic and drove into the mountains to the end of the road where the creek runs clear over weather smoothed rocks…taking multiple pictures of the ripples caused by him throwing pebbles into the creek…we sat and ate our dinner, enjoying the beauty of the place that we visited so much, not knowing that within two weeks our lives would drastically change with the words,” you have terminal cancer”…a huge tsunami in our lives…

That conversation about ripples, translated itself in so many ways…I even had ripples  engraved on our headstone for the cemetery in the months following.

 

But everyone makes ripples, we do one thing, small or big and it has effects that can be small or large, local or worldwide, close family or many families…

Like a operation Christmas child box…we fill a box thinking of the child who will receive it… but in reality a family receives or a whole community is effected but one shoe box sized gift…a lifetime remembrance of a gift…

Or the parents, teachers who educate their children…the effects of those forming years, of words taught, attitudes taught, ripples out all of those children’s lives…

The pastor who stands for, shepherds his flock and how he does it effects while congregations for years to come…

The political leaders, community leaders, those in authority….how they lead or not, effects whole nations, communities and constituents for times of turmoil or peace…

The widow giving her mite is recorded as giving so much over the man of wealth…

The books we read, the authors we follow make ripples in our lives…

The things each of  us do whether at home, on in public effects others…it may be temporary or long lasting….

And those ripples turn into other ripples affecting so much…

My husband’s and my conversation eleven years ago still sticks in my mind because of the ripple effect it has had on so many over years of life…just like other couples, families, whomever….

My challenge is what kind of ripples do we want to have, positive or negative…

 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Ps.32.8

 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Jas.1.22-25

Thank YOU….