Stones

I have a thing for rocks.

It’s early autumn, and the kids and I are having a homeschool day at the beach with scattered books on blankets and hands exploring and learning in nature. Summer in the PNW, though it is never long enough, is a glorious sight to behold with perfect temperatures, zero humidity, and late sunsets. We revel in this, since the remaining 2/3 of the year feels as though it is spent under a perpetual blanket of damp grey. The days will soon turn to endless drizzle and the wellies and raincoats will take up permanent residence by the front door. But for now, we will take advantage of what is left of the yawning sun before it hibernates.

My daughter is filling her pockets with rocks—her treasures. In the last year, I have washed her coat countless times with pebbles in the pockets, only to discover them clunking in the dryer. I recall a picture of myself at this same beach, around her age, with wind-tossed blonde locks framing an enormous grin and hands full to bursting with rocks. Decades later, I still find myself wandering to the water’s edge, peeping curiously into glistening piles for my own treasures. My heart quickening with child-like wonder, eagerly searching for the “diamond in the rough.” Hoping for unique beauty, hidden beneath a thousand round gray stones. Agates, dolomite, quartz, metamorphic rocks, and even stones with quartz veining encircling them like delicate crowns of mysterious origin. Whimsical “wishing stones.” I pick up a heart-shaped rock and pocket it. This is as close as it gets to treasure hunting. 

The clouds roll in and the wind picks up. The weather is temperamental near the sea, but we are used to it. I retrieve the sweatshirts and blankets rolled up in my “Mary Poppins” beach bag and we huddle together. I pull squirming bodies close beneath the blankets and whisper “let’s watch the waves together.” The tide is high and the breakers are uncharacteristically large today, crashing hard upon the shoreline. We are snuggled up near to it all, and the spray is misting our faces. We can hardly hear each other speak over the roar of the surf.

Inhaling and exhaling with the ocean swells while clutching little ones, I feel the Spirit of God flowing in an out with each wave as I am breathed upon and within. I reflect on the year so far, and all that the struggle has birthed within me. I resonate with the rocks upon the shore; and acutely feel the ache of the waves that have been pounding, evening, smoothing, grinding down my rough edges. The constant ebb and flow that I trust is slowly forming me into sand granules that will be soft enough to cradle a baby’s toes. As I roll back and forth upon this shoreline, the waves drag me across the jagged surfaces of hundreds of thousands of stones just like me. I am being shaped and I am shaping the stones beside and above and beneath me. We are not alone, there is a breathtaking oneness here as we bend in this erosive dance. Some days the waves seem to pummel mercilessly, breaking open deep and untouched spaces, exposing painful truths. But always after the storm, comes the gentle kiss of foamy ripples, tenderly filling in each new and unexplored fissure. Even those waves are at work, salving my stinging raw edges, soothing my soul. The ocean consistently surges, sometimes roaring and sometimes whispering, but always molding, sculpting, transforming me. 

And I notice with time a reality that once would have terrified me—I am shrinking. I am becoming less, or so it seems. I sift a handful of sand, hundreds of miniature stones through my fingers. The false self, my ugliness, the external and distracting grit, is being worn away in all of this pressing. And this is the question, that less frequently, but still occasionally catches in my throat in the midst of painful growth,

“Will I be ground into nothing? Will you leave nothing left of me?”

Pain has a way of forcing those core fears to rise to the surface.

I absentmindedly pull the heart stone from my pocket, turning it about in my hand. All at once I see the vein of quartz on the underside, rubbed into visibility. Years of waves had likely dislodged it from a cliffside and sanded it down along the shore to reveal the beauty within. And I hear the truth my soul already knows. The true me, the me I was made to become, the minerals of precious worth—all of these are being revealed here beneath the waves.

I lean into the pulsing rhythm. To the naked eye, I may become tiny and inconsequential. But look closely—what remains is an infinitesimal, purely refined gemstone. Each grain of sand is uniquely exquisite, and yet together we all serve as one vast floor where life can flourish. I become less and yet somehow I become more. 

I kneel in the gritty sand with my little ones, who are often the source of my transformation in this season. We begin making houses of rocks and sticks and without a thought I am stacking stones, erecting my own tiny altar. And suddenly where my soft pale hands are, my eyes unveil to see ages-past, calloused hands—darkened, cracked, and hopeful—heaving stone upon stone, building altars. Throughout scripture, rocks were piled high in recognition of the presence and the promises of God. And I’m joining them, here on my beach; building my own altar as I breathe His promise of this season into my marrow. 

The shaping waves will make me who I am meant to be. I am not alone. I will not fade into insignificance. I will become more. My life will mean more. More than I ever imagined possible. And my growth and healing will be the doorway that leads others to do the same. I am a “living stone” amongst the waves.