Smooth Stones and Sunflower Petals and Snail Shells

I am, and I say this with no apology, a magpie.

When I was packing for our recent trip, I kept having to pause and sort through random items emerging from the pockets and zippered compartments of my backpack.  A collection of sassafras twigs from a foraging walk in Appalachia.  A tiny chunk of quartz that I think I carried with me from an Ireland trip at some point.  Another smooth stone from a hiking trip.

I keep in front of me, at my writing desk, a wooden shelf.  The shelf primarily houses my Bible, but I have also dotted it with my tiny “treasures”: bright yellow dried sunflower petals in a glass jar.  A remarkable, pale snail shell whose spiral is defined by muted blues and browns. A barred owl feather.

To my left, on another shelf, sit my stones.  They are all contextually significant to me in some way: one, unremarkable and nondescript, from the earth where I was born and raised.  A beguiling collection of smooth stones from Ireland.  A pebble I found and kept from where it sat near the grave of a favorite writer, in Italy.  A black stone ringed with two unbroken white lines, from Portugal.

Why do I keep them?

Well, they are pleasant and intriguing to look at, and they are associated with some of my most remarkable and cheerful memories or some of my most meaningful places.  The petals are a bright splash of summer-sunlight yellow in the winter; the stones a record of where my feet have been that also feel slip-smooth and weighted, comforting, in my hand.

But I also keep them to remind myself that the world is big and wide.

Some days are long.  Some days are difficult.  I experience this, as we all do, at the personal level: a loss, a sickness, a sadness, a frustration.  We experience this at the global level too: war and famine, sorrow and grief.  And on a day like today—when I turn away from headlines that bring only dark news to my daily life, where I am still missing my mom—I turn to these little small things and I find reminders of God’s presence.

I find it easy to worship when I am away.  Something about the cares of daily life, the schedule I have to keep, the days of chores and obligations, doesn’t unleash me to the simple joy of just being and marveling in the world.  I may be un-evolved—I probably am un-evolved—but taking my nightly sojourn around my subdivision doesn’t inspire the same reverent awe as standing in front of a chaotic waterfall or comprehending the Atlantic’s mighty waves.

But these tiny treasures are reminders of those times, and a pull back to something bigger and broader.  I see the petals and I think, remember the heat and joy of that summer day and how the petals of the sunflowers seemed to hold all the warmth of the sun?  Remember how happy you felt, carrying around the bouquet?  Or remember the waves off the west coast of Ireland, and the gray sea and the stone, and how elemental and fierce it was?  Or remember the woods near where you were born, and how pitch-dark it gets, and the sound of owls late at night?

I think of those things and I think of God; I think of those things and I think of how big He is and how much He is and how all of this points back to Him; I think of those things and I am grateful to feel small and to know that someone else is in control.  I remind myself I do not have to know what to do.  I do not have to exert control over how events play out.  I do not have to understand or make sense of it.  I can simply sit here and hold a smooth stone and think,

God, all of it is yours, so please redeem it.

Recently, Beth Moore posted a thread online where she wrote the following: “It’s such an odd and mysterious thing when the promise of the coming back is hidden in the letting go.”  In the comments, in response to someone who complained that God’s timing was exhausting, she wrote:

“Now, these things are beyond my knowing but I wonder if sometimes and in some circumstances, giving something to God over and over can turn into another way of obsessing over it. Sometimes I think the key is accepting it as lost.  With YOU, I can live without IT.”

I suspect that is going to be the lesson of this year, for me: learning to let go.  To really let go—not to sit, as Beth aptly comments, and “give” it to God over and over as a way of hanging on or debating something.  Sitting in a swirl and reaching out for a smooth stone and knowing God is here, and letting that be all I need to know even if I want to know and control everything else. Looking at what God made and saying “thy will be done” without doing that things where I pray forty times and say, “Lord, I just need you to understand…”

If you asked me what it meant to let go six months ago, I don’t know what I would’ve said.  I would have used words like chaos and reluctance and frustration and stress and anxiety and irritation and confusion.  But for whatever reason, all my waking up and all my lying down this past week has been in absolute peace and I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told me.

Nothing has changed, really.  Or maybe everything has changed.  Or maybe I finally have just focused my gaze on the small things, on little treasures, on what reminds me of God, while the world does what it wants all around me.  I’m finding it a far preferable way to live.