The Rock

The Rock

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As I walked along the beach, deep in my own misery I stumbled and fell.

My foot had caught upon a rock lying in my path.

I looked at the rock, unassuming just being itself.

I was disturbed by it, it had made me feel pain.

Pain was all consuming, but this was different.

This pain made me feel.  Made me look at the path I was walking.

Where had the rock come from? Why was it just there, where I was walking?

I did not feel any more, only pain, constant, waking, sleeping.

But I had stumbled.  Different feelings had emerged.

Then the rock spoke to me. ‘Don’t be afraid, I am your rock.’

‘Are you God?’ I asked. ‘No, I am your rock, your sanctuary, your friend’.

‘I have friends’ I replied.

‘Yes, but I am a true friend, I will love you for yourself, as you are now,

not how you might be, or may have been’.

I could feel something inside me.

It was a different pain, it was the pain of feeling again. I felt afraid and stupid.

‘Don’t be afraid, I am your rock, your sanctuary, your friend,

I will always be here for you, and we can be together.’

I bent down to pull the rock from the shore.

The rock would not move.  I was afraid.

‘Do not tear me from my shore you do not need me to be next to you

to know that you are loved.’

‘But I am afraid’.

The rock spoke once more.  ‘Do not be afraid, I love you’.

I looked at myself in the water of the shore.  

I could see that I was no longer alone.  I had been joined by a smile.

It was my smile, beautiful, real, full of life, and within it was my rock. 

I knew then that the shore was constantly changing,

But that my rock would always be there.

And when it was time for the rock to move, I would know and be there for it to hold onto.