Rocks of Life

Having grown up on a small farm in Southeast Kansas I learned early what work was. There were morning and evening chores to do. There was firewood to carry in and stack on the back porch. There were cows to milk, a garden to hoe, and a lawn to mow.

One year while I was quite young, a pipeline company came through a corner of the farm and dug a deep trench in which to bury their pipe. Every year thereafter we as a family would take one of the hay wagons hitched to the tractor and work along the path of the pipeline picking up rocks which until the intrusion of the pipeline laid buried under the soil.

We would work for hours picking up rocks so they wouldn’t damage the farm equipment as it worked the field for another crop of wheat or corn. We used five gallon buckets to put the rocks in as we walked along. When the bucket became heavy we would deposit the rocks on the wagon which would later be emptied on the rock pile in the pasture. That pile eventually grew to be of considerable size.

Each year as the field was plowed a whole new crop of rocks would emerge to be picked up. Most of them were small enough to fit into our buckets. Very few would require two people to heft them onto the wagon.

Life has its own rocks. Each year of life brings with it a whole new crop of rocks which must be dealt with. Most of them are small, some large enough to require the help of another person to help us heft them onto the wagon. Once in a while we encounter a big one and we need help. Once in a while we encounter someone else who needs help with one of their rocks. That is what God put us here for, to help one another to heft our rocks onto the wagon. Then, together, we can take the gathered rocks to the pile and leave them there, forever.