Today there was an annual event in our community, the Gem and Mineral Show was in town, and needless to say, little boys and rocks and a 1st grader in GT studying dinosaurs and fossils are the perfect compliments to this sort of SHOW! Must there be a cave to have spelunkers??? or do you just get to be a "hound" for the rocks? Either way, THIS was an adventure with ready participants unbuckled from booster seats
as fast as little hands could click out!
Upon our initial choosing of the perfect "rock" as one of our admission extras, we jumped from one exhibitor to the next.... UNTIL... we found the treasure of the afternoon. GEODES!!!!!! there were ohhhs and ahhhhs resounding throughout the building as each purchaser's dinosaur shaped rock was "popped" open. Some revealed only a completely filled globe, but some..... well, some cracked apart to reveal a sparkling treasure chest of pink, purple, blue or white. It was a game of chance when you paid your $10 for 3.....but each took that chance with anticipation!!!
As I looked at those UGLY chalky grey round rocks, I thought about myself. Sometimes I sorta feel like that lumpy bumpy ball of rock. Rolled around and abused by the environment that is not friendly to our frail humanity. Even sometimes emotionally rolled around and bumped to and fro till I almost feel that my limit has absolutely been reached 3 bumps ago. Have you EVER felt like that? as Popeye (you young ones WILL not remember this cartoon hero) would have said right before the famous spinach gobbling... "that's all I'zzzz ken take and I kent takes no more!!!".
Well, sometimes I do feel like that......and this little round rock made me think of me.
So
after the choosing of the geode,
then comes the final stress on that many years old rock!
Into the machine with a big ole chain wrapped around the weakest part of the geode.
2 men ran the rock cracker... one wrapped the chains,
and the other lowered the final lever to break open the rock.......
You could hear a loud POP as the rock gave way to the pressure, and the man then released the chains leaving the rock in tact (except for the obvious circular crack), and handed it to it's purchaser. As the little hands of the ones who chose it opened the stone, what was inside was spectacular, and so unsuspected by those to whom the truth of geodes had never been explained. Beautiful... as the elements had striven together in ways that would seem to destroy the stone, instead it had created something of great individual and unique beauty.... I was thinking.... well, I'll not tell you anymore of what I was thinking, I'll simply say... I love the way that God shows me things just when I need to see them! I'll think differently of the geodes on our little hills next time I walk up that mountainside.
Oh yes, our little TS had his own special pleasure in the Gem and mineral show.....
No precious one, THIS IS NOT ROCK CANDY!!!!!
May the rough and tumble lumps and bumps of mine and your lives produce all the treasures that a LORD WHO sees and loves His creation has planned for there to be within us!
