Sunday, June 23, 2013

Ripples

Hello All,

It’s been a while since I got to spend some time in my virtual home here Under the Maple Tree.  I have been rather absent this season, just like at this time last year, because I have been out in the real world more often seeing so many of your encouraging faces at homeschooling conferences and other events.  It was such a busy time as I worked and spoke at more conferences than ever this year and had the opportunity to travel across the country to meet even more amazing parents who are walking this crazy homeschooling road with me.  What a treat it has been.

Throughout this season, one small lesson has resonated with me.  Perhaps it is because it takes so many repetitions to get through to such a thick head as mine or maybe it is just something that the Lord wanted me to learn.  I think it’s a bit of both. 

On our first family weekend camping trip of the year the weather was beautifully warm though the water at the beach was still quite chilly.  The kids played the days away in the water while I just tiptoed in and out around the edges of the water when I got overheated, the water rippling around my shivering knees.  It was a peaceful reprieve, watching the water moving out in tiny waves from the places where my toes displaced it.

You see, midway through the season, conference season (which used to be called spring in my world), my precious Nana died.  It was sad.  It was hard.  But at the same time, we were relieved for her, hoping that she had finally found peace after a very long battle with Altzheimer’s disease.  She had long since left us and it was only her body left that finally gave up.  It was, of course a time of tears and of memories and of telling stories of old.  I, being the talker in the family, again got to share a eulogy for a grandparent.  I remembered her in her big moo-moo dresses, rubber boots, winter coat, slacks and straw hat in her garden growing more food than the whole family could eat.  I remembered family celebrations with KFC, kielbasa and cabbage rolls because my uncle didn’t like turkey.  After the funeral, when we came home that day it seemed the most fitting tribute to eat KFC and spend the rest of the day in the garden.  Ripples.  Her life cascading into my own.  
 
Most recently we have cried many hours with friends as they have suffered loss, the results of many years of ripples rocking their boat, influencing them in ways that they weren’t aware of until they capsized. 

Ripples.  They have become a focal point even in the smaller events, seeing how our decisions affect our children’s decisions, their demeanor, their values.  I’ve also noticed that so often we are affected by what is rippling out from someone else’s life, their ideas, their actions.  So often I want to think that homeschooling my kids will allow them to come only under my influence but that is so often proven wrong, and often to their benefit.  I don’t always make the right decisions, say the right things.

The lessons I have been learning this spring are of how powerfully we are influenced and how we also influence others in ways that we may not even imagine in this lifetime.  It makes me afraid to dive into my roles, scared that I may unknowingly be the source of someone else’s undoing.  I think, too, how often I suppose to speak with authority about something and really I am just flapping my gums, sharing an opinion that may or may not be founded. 

As we formally wrap up another year of schooling I, as usual, am taking some time to look back and see where we have come from.  I see that we have learned a lot, but have we learned the right things?  I also look forward and anticipate.  I know that the unknown future holds many waves that will rock my boat, waves that will ripple out and threaten the sunny happy days that I desire for my kids to live under.  But rather than praying for a smooth ride, I am praying for a strong boat, for a firm foundation, and for waves that will propel them towards their Saviour rather than sink them in a mire of uncertainty. 

Wishing you, Dear Friends, strength and perseverance as you ride out the waves that shake you in this season.

Blessings,

Cori

www.mapletreepublications.ca

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