Ripples
Sometimes we are the ones planting a seed of spirituality in another person. At other times, we are the ones watering the seed someone else planted. And sometimes, we are the ones helping to harvest the flowering of a soul.
Each of these actions produces ripples in the world - a small wave of action that touches one life after another. We will never fully know, this side of heaven, how far these ripples reach.
A few weeks before my senior year of high school, my parents divorced and I moved with my mother and baby sister to Illinois. Unable to cope with the circumstances, my mother and I both fell apart. But my Uncle John, who had recently become a born again Christian, would pick me up when my mom could not deal with my depression, and take me to work with him. He was a night-time taxi driver and as we drove around all night, he would tell me all he knew and believed about the beauty and joy of a true relationship with God.
He planted a seed in me, and God sent many, many people to water that seed, whether I wanted to be watered or not. God loved me and he did not want to let me go. Until finally I thought I’d try a relationship with God; right there in the bible it said, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” If I took a taste and God wasn’t what He said he was, well, I’d just go back to what I had before. And my life has been more blessed than I ever expected.
I thought about ripples like these on the retreat weekend I just attended. During the weekend, ordinary people give talks about different aspects of their faith life, and then we form small groups and discuss how the the talks impact us and what we’ve learned. For the past ten years, I’ve led many of those discussion groups.
One talk was made by a young woman that used to be in the Sunday School classes and teen groups I taught. I remember one Sunday when no other students arrived, we sat on swings out in the playground while she talked about her struggles with faith and identity. I told her about my own teen struggles with God and how I decided to just give Him a chance, anyway.
Years later, she walked away from her faith and became deeply involved in drugs and sex. When she became suicidal, she remembered the promises she read in the bible. She decided that she would try to embrace God; if He didn’t bring the peace and joy she was looking for, then she was going to kill herself. But now? She is a woman on fire for God, full of excitement and love, and going to college to study social injustice.
Ripples. The little things we say or do each day have eternal significance, for good or for bad. My uncle’s words rippled through me to others. Other people’s ripples wash through me and refresh my soul. What ripples are you spreading through the world? What ripples would you like to share?
“Remind me of this with every decision
Generations will reap what I sow
I can pass on a curse or a blessing
To those I will never know.”– Sara Groves, “Generations”, from the album Conversations, 2001
What a great analogy of the ‘ripples’ we make in the world around us! What an incredible story of your Sunday school student who was lost and then came back to her faith life. Thank you for sharing that story. I love reading your blogs!