How gravel turns to gemstones

One Christmas, when I was a kid, I asked for a “rock tumbler.”

Looking through the Sears Christmas catalog, I saw the picture of those colorful, shiny, smooth rocks. I wanted to feel their glassy skins rolling around in my palm.

What I wanted even more was to see magic.

Dad said that I could put plain old gravel from the driveway into the rock tumbler. After a long time tumbling around and around in there, the gravel would come out like gemstones.

Oh, I wanted to see that!

Nobody got me the rock tumbler, but I still think about it.

I think about it on mornings like this one. Yesterday, I sent a note to a colleague to invite her to be a partner on a project. Her reply came across as icy and suspicious of my motives. She seemed to take what I wrote as an attempt to control her rather than an invitation to work with her. I felt hurt and misunderstood.

I think about that rock tumbler on days like the one when a woman with whom I worked gently led me to the prejudice I was hiding in my own mind. She helped me see that I was expecting different things from her and treating her different because of the color of her skin. It was a miserable conversation for both of us.

I think about that rock tumbler on mornings like last Saturday. A friend called to tell me that I betrayed a confidence. A choice that I pre-meditated turned out to be the wrong choice and I shared something I was supposed to keep private. I apologized and did my best to make it right, but I know that it could be awhile before my friend trusts me again.

I think about that rock tumbler at least once or twice a week. That is how often I fail to hear what my wife is saying to me. That his how often I fail to think about what I say to my wife before it comes out of my mouth. If I had a dollar for every time I had to tell my wife I’m sorry, I would have enough money to retire in my forties.

I think about that rock tumbler because I’m living in it.

By choice, I’m living in it.

If we want to shine like gemstones, we have to get into the rock tumbler and live our lives in it every day.

I’m not going to lie: I wish that the gravel of my life could turn into gemstone just by sitting alone with a cup of coffee and my open Bible.

But to become a gemstone takes time and tumbling.

Tumbling around and around with other gravel.

That means being in relationships–hard relationships–with other people. People who are not like us. People who may not like us.

Being in relationships grinds away the grit, knocks off the edges, and sands us down until we shine. It takes a long time and sticking with it all the way to the end. It takes faith and hope that all of us can turn out as gemstones together. It takes a choice to love every time we bump and jostle with someone else.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Book of Proverbs 27:17).

Grace and peace.