Make Ripples...

The story was told about Elzeard Bouffier, a 55 year old widower who lived in a French village in 1910, surrounded by poverty and despair. HE DID SOMETHING: he collected thousands of acorns and planted them throughout the area. When they took root, he cultivated beeches. When they became saplings, he planted birches. One day amidst the devastation of WWI, a mysterious grey mist appeared on the horizon. It was the oaks of 1910, below them the small beeches, and below them the tiny birch seedlings.

Bouffier kept planting and at the end of WWI, French environmentalists announced that a natural forest had sprung up mysteriously, flourishing amidst its barren suuroundings. But the story doesn't end there; his forest started a chain reaction. Water flowed in the brooks that had dried up. The wind scattered seeds, and willows, rushes, meadows and gardens sprang up. New people came to live there, bringing hope and prosperity. Bouffier found acorns, planted them and God did the rest.

1Corinthians 1:27 speaks of how "God chose the weak things". God can do mush with little. EX: David and his sling, Feed 5,000 with a boys lunch box. He'll do the same for us! Our lives are like pebbles. It may not look like much now, but drop it into apond and watch the ripples in every direction. Everyday we live we have 3 options:

1. Think only of yourself and your own interests.
2. Take no risks and go no further.
3. Ask God to show you what you've got, then use it to make ripples...

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary? That litte 'extra'. I've had a lot of people who have made ripples in my life: family, friends, mentors. Thank you, each of you, you know who you are. Lord, I am SO BLESSED!

BLESSINGS!

MT