Just a Pebble in The Sand...

It was just a small stone, lacking any intrinsic value, but it caught my eye lying there in the sand one day on my central Oregon coast.  I picked it up and slowly turned it over in my hand.  It was smooth and felt warm and I imagined it had been sitting there a long time, just waiting for me to come along.  It was just a simple gray piece of rock, probably broken off eons ago from a great boulder far, far away and endured a long journey to our shore, shaped and reshaped by the water and sand along the way.

I put the stone in my pocket and carried it home, wondering what it would tell me if only it could.  In my mind, I imagined it telling me this story:

She didn't mean to make the elements so angry!  She was just a little particle clinging to her great boulder mother high up in the mountains when the earth began shaking something fierce.  One giant shake and a piece broke off from the mother boulder and crashed to the earth below, carrying her with it and breaking into many other small pieces, and tossing the shard to one side with the force.

"What's happening, mother?  I don't understand!" the little shard cried as she tumbled and turned over and over again falling farther and farther from her mother.

"It is the way of the earth, my child," her mother called to her.  "This is your journey.  Follow your path."  Those were the last words that small shard heard from her mother.

Over and over, the fragment of rock rolled and fell, knocking off some of her sharp edges on the way.  At last, she came to a stop near the bottom of the mountain.  And there she came to rest for a season.

After the shaking of the earth, the rains came.  They fell softly, at first, but increased into a torrent, beating the shard unmercifully.  Many animals, running for shelter, stepped on the little rock, some of the sharp hooves breaking fragments from her edges.  She felt diminished and very alone.  Nothing was the same in her world.  The rain formed rivulets that coalesced into a stream that picked up the stone and tumbled it over and over down the mountain, depositing it at last down at the bottom of the river bed in the valley.  Where once she had been rough, now she was smoothing out.

For the moment the stone, more rounded pebble than sharp shard was afraid and wondered if this was the end of her journey.  She kept hearing her mother's words calling out to her, "This is your journey.  Follow your path."  She gained strength from her mother's words and soon began to like this new place where she had settled.  Other stones joined her there and so she felt less alone.  It's not so bad when you have company, she thought.  Someone to share your journey, your fears, your joys.  In this gathering of friends, she slept.  And while she slept, a change came over the earth.  Snowflakes fell softly on her and her new friends and began to cover the whole earth.  And everything slept.

In the spring, the earth began to warm and the snow melted.  The safe river bed swelled with water which overflowed its banks, picking up the little stone and some of her friends in its headlong rush to the sea, tossing and tumbling them over and over along the way.  "This is your journey.  Follow your path" played continuously in her head, but she wasn't sure she liked this new path with its great rapids, dashing her against huge boulders, and hurling her over waterfalls.  Farther and farther down the river she went.  Farther and farther from her mother.  It seemed to go on forever.

At long last, the stone was tossed out of the river into the great ocean.  Oh, my, thought the stone as the powerful waves rolled her this way and that until at long last she washed up on the shore where I found her.

Holding the pebble now that was so smooth it felt like a marble in my hand, I contemplate my own journey in life.  I left my home--my mother--where I was nurtured and fed and clothed at 17 and journeyed out into the big world to find my way, to follow my path.

Like the little stone that started losing some of its sharp edges as it tumbled along so I too, in facing the tough trials of life, had some of my sharp edges knocked off.  I lost my beloved husband of 22 years to a massive coronary that threw me down a steep mountainside of loneliness, while helping to smooth out some of my rough edges.  I have been lucky and I have been successful, and I have come through the bumps and harshness of experiences with far fewer sharp edges, just as the stone experienced.

Rains came into my life, when I lost my dad suddenly in an automobile accident; it threw me into torrential streams of despair but, again, it too further refined me.  Sometimes I made choices, which continued to test me and push me onward, forever smoothing out the rough edges of my life.  Eventually I was deposited on my own shore where for now I am content to stay.  Hopefully, I have come out of these experiences with a wisdom that will see me through whatever trials I am called on to face.

When I took my pebble home, I set up my tumbler to get ready to give the stone a final polish.  Patiently I wait for her to achieve the final luster just as those who love me wait for me to attain my last bit of polish.

Like the stone, the process to refine my life has been a slow one, but it's not a process that can be rushed if you seek the best outcome.  I cannot be in a hurry if I want to achieve my goals.  And in this final process, more and more of my worldly "edges" will be polished and smoothed and the result will be nothing short of a miracle.

Knowing the polishing process, I am aware I have a very long way to go.  And so, like the stone on her journey, I keep telling myself, "This is[my]journey.  Follow [my] path."