Two main ideas struck me when walking through D.C. last week. One I noted about Cincinnatus in an instagram post. The other has to do with “Rome” not being built in a day.
“A rose started off a bud, a bird started off an egg, and a forest started off as a seed.”
M. Dhliwayo
I chaperoned our school’s eighth grade trip last week and remembered touring all of these same places when I was their age. Yet this time felt different from the POV of a 42 year old in the 21st century.
What struck me as I walked dwarfed by these monuments made of white washed stones of remembrance was “Who dares despise the day of small beginnings?” Zech. 4:10
Everything starts small and even America had to start somewhere. These monuments didn’t pop up over night nor did our great nation. The sacrifices of many rooted America into what we’ve gotten to enjoy in our lifetime.
I was reminded that sometimes we have to sacrifice something we want so that someone else can have something better. It may not always be immediately tangible to giver or the receiver, but it is better. We can’t be afraid to be beginners, to start something new, to be the roots of something that we may not live to see the fruits.
When I was in eighth grade we brought in self addressed double postage paid envelopes to put letters inside that we’d written to ourselves. In ten years we were to receive those letters to make sure the advice we’d given ourselves about our hopes, dreams, ideals, and whatever we’d want our older selves to remember was being lived in our 20’s.
Like clockwork mine arrived at my parents’ house in the early 2,000’s. The one thing I remember about my words is that it had the theme of wanting to be financially successful (spoken from the voice of a girl who had grown up in a recession). What the teacher failed to get us to consider when we wrote these letters was our calling.
What I couldn’t have understood at 14 was that it would be better to follow the calling God had on my life than to chase wealth. What I didn’t yet know was that money doesn’t buy happiness, but service to others pays the dividends. Service to others trumps personal gain every day of the week.
Instead of New York City like I wanted, God called us back to our small town and led us to invest in a small Christian school startup. He called me away from a growing career in graphic design and photography to raise a small family and use my art abilities to inspire young minds to glorify God through their creativity.
Instead of my eighth grade dream of a custom designed home, we live with 90’s fruit tile in our kitchen and 1970’s bathrooms (that I admit I sometimes complain about), but I’m reminded constantly it’s worth it to live this full of hope life that we are investing in is building a future for our family and community that will leap forth in growth in all the right ways.
Our school is growing, flourishing, leaping you might say and my kids are learning character as they are a part of the foundation of something bigger than themselves, something they can’t understand or see at their ages.
One day I hope they will each have their own stones of rememberence to look back on where they saw a small thing grow into something monumental.
Create Everyday 