Haiti 4- Should have remembered the rocks…

I sat on the roof with a couple of my girls and we shared a sunset in silence or at least I was unaware of their talking if they were. My thoughts got lost in a couple rocks in front of me. Evidently God wanted to teach me another lesson about rocks so I stared at them and asked myself what I would be thinking if I were a rock…who has that kind of thought? Haha, anyway one rock was actually a chunk of hardened concrete broken off. The other rock was some sort of sedimentary rock that had been packed pretty solid. I imagined the conversation that these two rocks would have had with each other and I figured I would share a portion of it with you.

“Hey, piece of concrete…how does it feel not to be a true rock?”
“ummm…I dunno, at least I have a function. I’m the one that holds all you other rocks together…Without me, you’d always be lonely and separated. How does it feel to always be by yourself?”
“Now wait a second, if it wasn’t for rocks like me there would be no use for you…you’re only there to do the stuff us rocks don’t want to do…”
“or can do??”

…I’m pretty sure you get the conversation, but I didn’t know how it would end. I hoped that in the end they would both realize that they kind of needed each other but that they would ultimately realize that they are both just rocks…In fact, even if a diamond were in the conversation, that diamond would eventually have to admit that it to was just a rock.

What I didn’t know was which of the rocks would come to this realization first?

As I thought of this question, I glanced over and watched as the three somewhat homeless naked boys who meander on and off of the property to get water were walking away from me along a dusty trail. One carried water, one gimped along and the third used a stick to keep his bike tire rolling along with them.

Did they know they were poor? Did they know how little they had or was it all they had known? Did they know it and just accept it because that’s the way it is? Did they care that they were poor? Did they feel poorer when they were around us Americans? Did they feel richer with us there because we often gave them a little something of what we had? Was our presence an enrichment of their lives?

On the flip side, did they make me feel rich…or poor? Did I know how poor I really am? How do I perceive poor and rich? If we are just going by monetary amounts they’re actually richer than I am. They may have nothing, but they also aren’t bound by tens of thousands of dollars of debt from the blessing of education. Yet, I’ve been blessed with amazing family, friends and opportunities that are worth much more than money…

Which one of us truly will realize first that in the end we’re both the same? We have the same basic needs and without Him we’re both just broken rocks…