Have you ever gone hiking and come upon a pond or a lake that is surrounded by pebbles, and enjoy the beauty of such a frame around the water? Each pebble is unique and different and yet all are part of a whole.  When thinking of all the people who have come before me and who will come after me,  we are all in reality a part of something much bigger than ourselves and thus adding to God’s dream of creation.

However, there are those pebbles that from out of no where become an irritant in our shoes.  Where did they come from and why did they leave the whole to become separated and not only separated but irritating?   I probably have been such a pebble in some peoples’ shoes off and on in my life.  I accept that about me with my fellow human beings but do I become an irritating pebble in God’s shoes?  I often wonder with all my pleading prayers, my visions, my need to know and my demands of what should be in this world do I become that  irritating pebble?

Another aspect of a pebble’s life is when walking the area near the water, many people pick up pebbles just to throw them into the water to watch the waves that such an action causes never knowing how far or where the waves will travel.  The pebble now becomes a part of the whole in another area and causes its presence to be known in a different way.   For once the pebble is tossed from the shoreline it is no longer about the pebble but the waves it causes.  It is the same with words both written and spoken becoming  like the pebble tossed in making waves never knowing  who or what they touch or how far they will travel.

Am I at times a pebble in God’s shoes with my prayers? Probably.  Are my words like pebbles tossed into a pond never knowing who or what they touch?  Absolutely.    As I look upon the world, the universe, the stars in the sky and the pebbles on the beach, and the many human lives lived before and yet to be I’m overwhelmed with it all.  And yet the reality that I seem to forget is that God sees and believes that all creation is a part of a bigger dream.  Where am I in that dream – am I like an irritating pebble or a pebble that is a part of a whole that helps form the bigger dream of God?

Susan Handle Terbay