I have felt powerless often these days;
Powerless against so much chaos and division,
Powerless against the changing tides of culture, and seemingly relentless swells of hate.
I’ve spent a lot of time wringing my hands, praying, and planning for things.
I’ve sat up late at nights thinking about things like moving to a remote fishing village far far away in a sun hat, but, in the end, I always land back in the same place:
Just do the next right thing.
Sometimes this thing will feel so very small.
Sometimes this thing will be a thing you think no one will notice, or will be brushed off as so petty it never made a difference to anyone, but if you get lost too much in that mindset, it can stop you completely from even trying anything anymore.
I’ve started giving myself pep-talks in the mirror when I’m feeling low, telling myself to remember lessons from my own parenting, and then I use them on myself.
I think about how often I have told my girls that, though we may not be able to change the whole world, if we can change one heart, one mind, that is something valuable.
I think back on the saying that I have seen before about how maybe the way you will change the world is not about who YOU are, but who you are raising.
I have always hoped to raise world-changers.
You never know how your impact will ripple out into the world.
So, last week I started small when I bought a multi-pack of Post-it notes at the office supply store.
That night I sat and wrote on dozens of them – Messages of hope, and resistance, and of love.
“You matter”
“Use your voice”
“Love always wins”
“Words matter”
Then also a few
“Hate never made anything great”s, and
“No kings in America.”
I tucked them in my purse pocket, and set about my small work.
For a week now, I have been placing these bright colored notes all around my town everywhere I go.
I’ve put them on gas pumps, and milk cases, doorways to stores, mailboxes, street lights, and then put several tucked into hidden places in our main grocery store.
Just a little thing. Possibly inconsequential.
Maybe they’d all get swept up, I thought,
until one day I saw a woman reading one in the dairy aisle, and a small smile spread on her face as she paused for a minute.
She grabbed what she’d come for before walking off with the trace of what she’d just read still on her expression, with me as the only one who knew what I’d done.
I like to think maybe throughout her day that day she thought about seeing that, and chose her own way to promote encouragement and love.
*drop*
One little ripple that had just begun.
Not two days after I started this new Post-It Mission, and my dad called me one day while I was in my car, asking me if I wanted to hear something good.
I answered “Always.”
These days “Something good” feels so infrequent, and craved. I waited to hear it.
“I think I found a new guy!” He started.
My dad runs a construction and handyman business.
Every single guy he’s hired is one who was previously down on his luck.
He went on to tell me that the other day he’d seen a guy on the side of the road walking with the same kind of dog he had, and once he stopped, he went to talk to him.
After conversing for a while, he could tell that this man was intelligent, eager, and not using drugs, and he drove away with the thought of him still in his mind, thinking about him.
The next day, when he saw him a second time, he thought it must be fate, and so he pulled to the side of the road to ask the guy what he thought about doing some work for him.
When the man said an enthusiastic “Yes,” my dad asked him what he thought his labor was maybe worth, and the man had said, “I don’t know…Maybe $15-$20 an hour?”
“But I knew here you can’t really feed a man for that, you know? So I asked him what he thought about $30, and so right now I’m cleaning out my truck because tomorrow morning I’m going to pick up my new worker and we’ll need space for his dog.”
I could tell my he and I were both grinning on both ends of the line.
He ended the call with a voice threatening to crack with tears, saying,
“One person at a time, right?”
I knew what he meant.
He meant we might not be able to change the whole world, but we can all just start with one.
*Another drop*
This week my mom’s last remaining sister passed away from Vascular Dementia.
I had FaceTimed her just the day before, and it had pained me so much to wonder if she even knew who I was.
This was one of the most welcoming, giving and loving women that ever existed in the world.
When she passed away, a comment on the news of it from a longtime friend was that “if the Christian church sainted people like the Catholic church does, she would definitely have been one of them.”
My Aunt Shirley would never be sitting when we’d go visit her.
She would be up cooking and cleaning, and doing things for everyone.
She’d run you a bubble bath in her deep soaker tub, scented with sweet essential oils. When you needed a towel, she’d offer her fluffiest one. When you stepped out, all your laundry would be folded and waiting fresh from the dryer for you.
When Aunt Shirley was around no one else would have to lift a finger.
She fed people, and served people, and I’m sure did a million things no one ever knew,
because she would never talk about herself very much.
She only wanted to know all about you.
In her 85 years, I never heard one negative word from her. Not one. Never talking about anyone behind their back, or tearing at anyone’s character. No fake “bless their hearts,” or face of judgement towards them; Just a genuinely loving and sacrificial person: The human embodiment of true love.
Messages about her now have poured in from all around the globe.
People telling tales of her impact on them.
They talk about how she lived out her faith tangibly, and how, because of that, she had permanently affected them.
The night she died, I knew before I really knew, when her mother’s prized biscuit cutter that I’d inherited fell from the display shelf without a cause right at midnight, on the dot.
I knew when my eyes were drawn to it that it was symbolic, reminding me to pay attention to the ones who are behind the scenes doing the sometimes small-seeming, quiet, and faithful work:
The unselfish, upright, and loyal-hearted ones.
They are there around us in every corner.
The world right now tries to drown them out, and convince us that that kind of person is gone,
But this week, over and over, I have been given proof of their existence, and how, in the things I choose to do with my own life and time, they will always live on.
In these trying times lately, I have worried about the futures of my children,
but now I see that the spirit of love will always get passed on and on.
Little eyes are watching each of us.
They are observing how we speak, and move in the world.
I know my daughters saw the Post-it notes I bought,
and I pray that one day this part of my family will be what is passed on.
The rings of ripple don’t seem significant when there’s only one,
But, as they spread and grow, it becomes obvious that there is so much power in what started out as just a drop.
So,
Let love be my legacy.
Let the ripple spread on.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
