Leaving an impression.  It’s something we do every day, every moment, but are often unaware of the impact we make.

The other day, I sat down on the dock of our pond and slowly dangled my feet in the water.  I watched the ripples vibrate out to the edges of a pond….I did not even try to make a ripple, it just happened.  Just so, everything we do in this world has a ripple—a far more reaching ripple than you might expect.  No wonder the fish know when I am coming, they feel it in the water.  They expect to be fed….too bad they don’t know that I am just fattening up for when we are going to eat them…hmm…..ripples.

After just getting off the elevator, my husband commented about someone who was just in there.  No she wasn’t in there any more, but he could tell she had been and she left a favorable impression!  He came home to tell me how good she smelled (brave boy).  She smelled like strawberry shower gel….ok—so I need to run out and buy some strawberry shower gel….hmmm….ripples.

I read in my bible from the book of Matthew, Chapter 26, about the woman who broke a very expensive alabaster jar of fragrant oil and anointed Jesus’ head.  The disciples were all upset, saying that she could have sold the perfume and given the money to the poor.  Jesus rebuked them, saying that she had done a beautiful thing.  Without knowing it, she had anointed him for burial (which would come after his crucifixion just a few days hence).  Her unabashed love offering lingered with him through his awful ordeal.  Perfumed oil stays with you.  I like to think that he was comforted every time he moved or the breeze blew and the fragrance reminded him that someone loved him and believed in him when it seemed the whole world had gone crazy and all his close friends had abandoned him…kept him focused….because he stayed focused on his goal, millions have believed.  Hmm….ripples.

Sure, I know that sometimes we make a certain impression on purpose.  We wear a certain thing, do a specific action, say something brilliant, or mean, or sweet…all to create a certain effect.  It would be pretty spectacular, if we thought through each and every thought and action and word before it materialized, knowing that it would create ripples.  We cant always see the ripples, cant really know how far they go.  Yet, we can pretty much assume that if we say loving things, constructive things, the ripples created by them, figuratively and actually will be positive.  It’s the thoughtless words, the emotional regurgitations that often come back to bite us or wound someone.  The things we let fly that we can’t catch again.

Are we leaving a fragrance that people will come home and talk about because it was so sweet to remember?  Or are we leaving a stench because we blindly walk through our lives leaving a trail of tears and misunderstandings because are too lazy to think about what we say first.  Are our words a healing balm to someone with a fragrance that gets them through their trials or are they like pouring acid on a wound because we couldn’t stop the ugliness before it came out?  We are making an impact one way or the other, whether we try to or not…it’s the way of the universe.  Think about it.  Think:  hmmm…ripples.

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