My Rock

This morning as I sat having brunch surveying my tropical living room contemplating why I let my beautiful plants die, my eyes fell on a rock in a little monument like what-not that said "Welcome to My Garden" my smile warmed my heart and beautiful memories came flooding back.

I almost threw that rock away once when I found it in a junk box and couldn't remember where I got it from. Fortunately God is faithful and the memory is now not only in my mind but in my heart. During the era of the pet rocks my dad and I would joke about people buying rocks when you could pick them off the ground for free. Our common line during our various departures became "bring me back a rock", and one day he did just that.

He loved to hunt and fish, upon returning from one of his fishing trips he smiled and handed me a rock (one of those times, like many in our relationship, when we didn't need words). The rock reminds me of the five smooth stones that David picked up when he was challenged by Goliath. I don't think it was by chance that I noticed this rock on this particular morning...Father's Day.

I was trying not to think of what day it was, it has not been an easy day for me since my father’s very tragic death, but God was using an inanimate object to speak to me about this day and my father. It was an oddly shaped smooth rock with cracks that had been smoothed over and blemishes that looked liked they were part of a design—pretty much an imperfect rock, just like us and the world we live in; a world where people selfishly take the lives of other people because their life is not perfect—hence the man that took my father’s life. But now on this Father’s Day rolling that stone around looking at its attributes and pondering the memories was bringing me joy just to hold it in my hand, look at it and remember where it came from...and who I came from.

In that moment I no longer thought about what that day was not, a day that I would not be able to see my father’s big grin when I showed up at church and gave him whatever goodies I had for him. Instead, it was slowly becoming a day I would remember the good things over the bad, how he was my rock and was always there for me, agreeing and confirming that I should or should not do something I wanted to explore or change in my life. Little did he know when he gave me that rock it would become a symbol of my memories of him and how he lived his life.

That rock will now serve as a memory rock that forever reminds me of my dad as not only the pillar of strength for my family but for our extended family and friends of the little community I grew up in.

May God give us all a time to reminisce our most cherished memories.