In church Sunday, we were offered a selection of polished rocks to use as we ponder the foundations and insecurities of our lives. There was an array to choose from: some smooth and some jagged, some dull and some with polished surfaces. I chose this one. It spoke to me.

At first glance, it looked smooth and polished (left). I picked it up and ran my fingers over the silky surface. Then I turned it over, and found that there was a chunk missing on one side, leaving a rough and uneven edge where this piece had chipped off. This wasn’t a smooth and perfect stone – it was damaged, it had a story.

To me, this makes it a perfect meditation stone. I pondered how a stone like this might sit in a stream, being smoothed over a long period of time by running water, but then something jarring had happened, something that had altered it forever. So now, it looks like this. We could polish the rough edges off, sure, but that would shrink its size, and hide that part of its story.

Life is a book with many chapters, and some of those chapters involve jarring events that leave jagged edges. Our challenge is to either choose to see it as beautiful despite the alteration, or to choose to spend time and energy trying to keep appearances smooth, and diminish the whole in the process. Either way we choose, the damage cannot be reversed, only reckoned with.

I hope we can come to embrace the jagged edges, and honor our worth in spite of, and because of, them.

Annette