In my Christmas decorations, the fragile ornaments live separately from the non-fragile ones. Everything is carefully wrapped each year. One of these ornaments is a large hand-painted ball from our first Christmas in Germany. Well, was. When I went to pick up that ornament, I heard and felt a crunch through the wrapping. This is one of those “cannot be replaced” kinds of ornaments. I was devastated, while at the same time recognizing that the ornament was less important than the memories of our time in Germany.

Over the weekend, when loading my show bags, my son managed to knock everything onto the floor with a splendid crash. When I arrived and started setting up my booth, I learned that two of my mirrors had not survived. I cleaned everything out of the bag and shook out the shards over the trash can.When I arrived home that evening, my daughter’s first words were, “Something bad just happened to your pepper shaker.” The first thing I noticed: everyone was barefoot. Though disappointed that my antique shaker crashed and broke, my first task involved safety and cleaning another mess of broken glass.

Each of these instances provided an opportunity. I could be mad about the loss of objects and the mess, or I could be thankful that no one was hurt and teach humility through service. I could focus more on the stuff and less on the people around me. Even in my disappointment, I focused on gratitude.

It is the same when we face brokenness through significant losses in life: loss of income, loss of a job, loss of a loved one, loss of a dream. How we respond determines how we will heal and rebuild.

The song also contrasts what we demand with what we truly need and our earthly plans with the hope God provides. That thought has stayed with me as I reflect on one year before beginning another. Focus determines direction, even (or especially) in times of brokenness.

During the spring of 2020, canceled events gave me time to reconnect with contacts from years of craft shows and vendor events. As I worked through the names, the events themselves brought back memories.

In November 2015, I met a beautiful, smiling 13-year-old Aranza. She greeted me like we’d known each other always. She laughed with me and enjoyed my sense of humor. We joked and shared sarcasm and puns. She trained me in doing shows, and at 13, she amazed me. I think I watched her more than I did anything that day. At 13 years old, her mama could trust her to run a booth—from greeting customers, to demonstrating, to counting correct change! From that day on, when she saw me, she asked about my business—not in a casual way, but in the way someone asks when they know what it takes and they really want to know how you’re doing.

In February of 2017, I did a big show with Aranza and her mother, who had become one of my closest friends. By this time, I viewed Aranza as something like a niece. We continued our banter and enjoyed each other’s company during this event. I again watched as she amazed the customers, even making an impression on a young girl, probably about nine, who said, “I want to do this!” I made some great contacts through this event.

As I entered my contacts from 2017 into my customer service manager, I noticed something that stopped me.

Aranza’s handwriting.

The unexpected wave crushed me. A life lived to the fullest, just shy of 17 years, cut short by the actions of another. A life that touched so many others—she made waves instead of ripples.

In that moment, my grief was less about what happened, more about missing her presence, but most about Homesickness.

Since August 8, I’ve said Aranza’s fingerprints are in the way I run my business. Here, I could actually see the mark she left behind.

Grief has a way of appearing in places we don’t expect—in an old contact list, familiar handwriting, or a memory tucked into an ordinary task.

As a Believer, I have a confident expectation of being reunited with my loved ones.

In the meantime, fingerprints are everywhere.

A few days later, “making ripples” would become more than an illustration.

On August 7, we started school and began a new routine. My video that night, entitled “Eat the Frog,” was about doing things you don’t want to do. While recording, I missed a call from my best friend. Usually, we message each other or text, so I initially thought that she called unintentionally.

Until she left a voicemail.

As I listened to her short message, I knew it would never leave me, and that I would never forget the sound of her voice.

“The girls have been in an accident!”

I don’t know how I stayed standing. I don’t know how I found the ability to stay calm enough to return her call. What I know is that moment and the hours that followed changed our lives.

I began praying as soon as I played the voicemail. I kept vigil through the night, unable to sleep, waiting for news. In three hours, my friend lost two of her three daughters.

I dreaded telling my children the next morning. My son had spent part of that day at the youth rally with them. My daughter adored them. I loved them, and could only love them more if they were my own.

In the following days, I witnessed an outpouring of love for my friend and her family from all corners of the earth. Ella and Aranza touched many lives in their daily activities. They never met a stranger. They befriended the friendless, listened to the lonely, and included the outcast. No one had to sit alone at the lunch table if Ella or Aranza was present.

As I shared information, I remembered my conversation with my son about ripples. At that moment, I said:

“These girls didn’t make ripples. They made waves.”

Thousands of lives were touched because of these young ladies.

Everything we know can change in an instant. We don’t always realize the impact we have on other people. Ella and Aranza showed how seemingly small acts of love and kindness can reach farther than we could ever know.

Making waves doesn’t always begin with something big. Sometimes, it begins by making sure no one sits alone.

When I was five years old, my father preached a sermon in which he talked about his mother dying. Well, this was news to me, as I’d just seen my grandparents both alive and well not too long before. My mother realized very quickly that I was not only paying attention but also very upset, thinking Grandma was dead. She explained that my dad’s mother died when he was seven years old and that Grandpa remarried, so I had two Grandmas. My parents did not keep this information from us; this is simply the age when the information “clicked” in my brain. Though I didn’t know that first Grandma, I lost her that day.

Fast forward 17 years to 2002. I had just graduated from college and had a couple of weeks left in on-campus housing before moving into my new apartment. I received a call that my Grandpa had passed away. He had been in the hospital with complications after heart surgery, and the prognosis had gone back and forth, but the loss was still unexpected.

My college minister and his wife helped me move the rest of my belongings into my new apartment so I could be cleared with housing. My flight home was my first post-9/11 flight. With a one-way ticket and only a small carry-on, I became a red flag for additional screening. The screener put my toiletry bag back into the larger bag upside down, which meant my contact case was upside down, too. This still aggravates me.

I remember walking down the steps toward the area where people met arriving passengers and seeing my dad. We cried as we embraced. So many people came to the memorial service to honor a gospel preacher of just over 50 years. I learned a lot about Grandpa that day, which made the loss more complicated.

Yesterday, my Grandma died. She’s been unwell for a while. Her suffering is finally over. Like Grandpa, she spent a lifetime in the Lord’s service, teaching Bible classes, helping with church secretarial tasks, typing for my grandfather, leading Ladies’ Bible studies, and generally serving alongside her husband as a preacher’s wife.

Here is what my own father wrote about his mother for his church bulletin:

On February 14, 1960, fifty-five years ago, a Christian woman named Mary became my second mother. When she married my dad she knew the job that lay ahead. She became “instant mama” to three sons: a seven-year-old, a five-year-old, and a five-month-old. Many women would have run from such a task, but my mother took on the challenge and met it well. She encouraged me to become a preacher, provided a listening ear, and gave me the little sister I wanted. My first memory of hearing the phrase “treated like a stepchild” was as a young adult. I didn’t comprehend what it meant. Technically I was a stepson, but I never felt like one. Yesterday mother went home to be with the Lord. Although mom was eighty-four years old, for her children and grandchildren her death was still too early. I’m thankful to God for two wonderful mothers: the one who bore me and the one who finished molding me.

Grandpa asked me during many visits when I was going to get married and start having great-grandbabies. He died five years before I married and six years before his first great-grandbaby was born. I am so glad that my Grandma lived long enough to meet both of my babies in person.

I didn’t take any pictures of our last visit because she didn’t look like herself, and I wanted to remember her as she is in these pictures. Our visits were not as often as I would have preferred, but distance, her poor health, and my son’s severe allergy to cats all acted as barriers.

I made efforts to call regularly, even while living in Germany. I set an alarm on my phone with Acappella’s “I’m Gonna Keep on Workin’ ’Til He Comes” so I would remember to call at a good time despite the time difference. The song fits her personality. She taught Ladies’ Bible Study until she felt unable to give it her best effort and continued participating until worsening health made even that impossible.

In all of my phone calls with her, she told me she was proud of me, that I am a good mom, and that she loved me. Just as my dad never felt like he wasn’t really her son, I’ve never felt like less than her granddaughter.

This week, we prepare for a family reunion of sorts as we gather to say an earthly goodbye to Grandma.

I am so glad to be a Christian, to have hope beyond this life, and to know that the end of Grandma’s suffering on this earth is the beginning of a beautiful, joy-filled, pain-free eternity.