Rocks in the Stream

I had a very entertaining conversation with my partner one day. We were out for a walk in the woods and we came to a stream. This is a place that he has come to love over the past few months and wanted to share it with me. What he said to me that day made more sense than I had thought it would.

He spoke about the stones in the river and the similarity to the stones in our lives. Without the stones, the water is still there and it is still beautiful. The only thing is that without the stones, the water has no shape.

In our lives, we are faced with different sets of stones. We can go crashing into them, or glide silently over them. We can allow them to break us apart, or we can wear them down. Without them though, there would be no shape to our lives.

It is only through trials, adversity, pain and sorrow that our lives gain shape. It is only through losing something precious that we can realize how precious what we have truly is. When we allow ourselves to simply move through life, avoiding adversity and not attempting to change our surroundings, then we lose something that is very important in our lives.

Water has incredible power. When I travelled out to western Canada with my family, we saw many waterfalls. Most of these waterfalls had worn down the stone walls around them. You could see the layers of the wall that had been washed away over time. For me, after my conversation of stones and water, that showed the resilience of the human spirit.

As many rocks can be placed in front of us as we can handle. We can choose to crash up on those rocks or we can choose to wear them down. Even if we do crash up on the rocks, there is always the chance to regroup and pull ourselves back together. For the most part, we are able to do that. There is the resilience of the human spirit. And that is more incredible than anything else.

I am hitting some of the stones in my life. I don't want to leave the cocoon of love and safety that I have found in my community and it is breaking my heart on so many levels. I know that this is just one more of the stones in my life that I have to face though. And I will. It is not a stone that will be able to break me apart because I won't let it. This is a stone that I will wear down.