Ripples

Have you ever taken a moment and looked at the water across a lake really closely and seen the ripples it makes across the surface?

The current creates ripples of different sizes based on what’s going on. When a larger boat or canoe or many boats and canoes and paddle boards are in the lake the ripples get bigger but when there’s no one on it the ripples are smaller. Yet, the ripples continue and the rings create a continuing crescendo.

I was reflecting about this the other day as I spent some time in quiet looking at this lake. I thought about the various choices I made over the past 3 years and the impact that some of those choices had on not only me but others. 

Some of the impact was good and some of the impact of my choices wasn’t good at all. I’ve been reading this book by Bryan Maier about forgiveness and justice. I’ve found it insightful and helpful in both working through forgiveness and justice in my personal life and in having a broader understanding of how to view it in circumstances within the world. 

There’s a lot I’m processing and taking away from it but at the moment the thing I’m honing in on the most is that I can’t change things that happened to me and that I allowed to happen to me but I can take time, really truly allow myself to heal and not allow myself to become bitter over my wounding over someone elses’s poor actions and choices. I can break the cycle. I don’t have to repeat what someone else did to me and I don’t have to shut myself off from others when it’s easier to or feels “safer”. I can choose to still see the good in life, I can still choose to see the good in others again and probably listen better to my intuition. I can choose to live like Christ asks me to live and not out of my pain.

I can choose to deal with the impacts the wounding has had on my nervous system in healthy ways instead of unhealthy ways. I can choose to trust God to be just instead of take justice into my own hands. None of this is easy by the way but God is gracious in giving me His Holy Spirit to help me live differently and see the ripples that can be created based on how I choose to live in light of this. And still it’s a struggle but I know the direction I want to go versus the direction I don’t. There are healthy and unhealthy ways to heal. And I’m finding the things that are healthier with God’s help. 

So today know that no matter what you have chosen before or what you have been through, you have a choice on where you go from here. You can make choices that have a negative ripple effect or choices that have a positive one. It’s up to you. Know that regardless of what you choose, you will create ripples. 

Have a great weekend!

Amy