Ever since I was a little girl I’ve loved looking for agates. Back then a favorite place to search for those pretty rocks was at an office building with miles and miles (seemed like to me then) of river rock in a double perimeter around the building with an outer edge surrounding the parking lot. Thinking back now I realize those were times of really connecting with God and still are…like looking for that one precious stone and being so thankful to have my agate eyes to find such little treasures. My nephew Joey loved it when I took him to look for agates…it just slows you down and connects you at the heart. love it. Some I’ve found and polished for you to see here. With Joey when he was 4 or 5 he’d find some “pretty rock” and ask “is this an agate” and I’d say "no but it’s a very pretty rock you can keep it too!" and he did for a while; eventually when he got that response he’d toss it down like “no way” and then he got his agate eyes. Agates are to me a metaphor of learning, searching for good things, finding beauty, layer upon layer of meaning. Often times you’ll find one you cannot see any lines but you know inside they’re there and if you crack it open or just use some grit and polish, the true beauty is revealed.
Oh Joey’s eyes when something so ordinary on the outside was nothing but extraordinary on the inside! lines and colors and crystals...he loved the hammer time too : )
Joey is 15 now … it’s been awhile since those agate days …
I have one rock, slate like, nothing special except that when Joey found it on Easter morning probably 10 years ago now, it was in two pieces already…and he gave me half and kept the other and said “hey auntie di this can be our agate hunting rock and when we can we'll put them together whenever we look for agates.” I still have that rock. *tears.of.joy* As we continued our little journey of gathering rocks worth keeping his small voice sang “You came from heaven to earth to show the way from the earth to the cross my debt to pay from the cross to the grave from the grave to the sky Lord I lift your name on high...”
That memory rocks like an agate...or even just a pretty rock.
2 comments:
oh di. this is a beautiful story. i love the image of how something so ordinary-looking on the outside can contain such indescribable beauty on the inside when you're able to look beneath the surface.
calls to mind 1 samuel 16:7 ... "But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
such amazing beauty is contained therein ... beneath the layers, beneath the exterior ... who would guess that those layers build upon such a thing of beauty?
Feb 28 2008 2:45 PM
yeah it seems like that was yesterday.
now that im 15 it seems like we never do those things anymore. But i have to find the other side of the agate rock!!!!
love joey:]
Post a Comment