Barbie Loflin

There is something to be said of turning stones.

When I was a little girl living on a dusty old road called Walls Hollow, one of my most wonder-filled pastimes was perusing gravel. (Yes, I am easily entertained). Gray rock, mundane and nondescript, possessed a lure I found somehow irresistible. Though the grown up eye might find it common, I knew that lurking beneath the surface of the ordinary was the potential for the extraordinary. I knew that if you turned the stone and looked at it from all angles, you might find a pink or white quartz-like composite. I had happened upon that supreme knowledge much by accident, but it was an encounter that marked me. What I had seen as plain old stone before, in that moment of revelatory beauty, had now become potential treasure, and it was mine, all mine! What I had once ignored I now became obsessed with. I could not walk on an ordinary gravel road without feeling a pull to look under the stones. I just had to see what was just beneath the surface; what lay on the other side. While others ran ahead, or left me altogether, I walked slowly, stooping to turn the gravel in my hand, abiding the dust cloud, knowing that at any time, the hidden beauty would miraculously appear.

In my days of innocent searching subtle nuances drew my eye and held my attention. Was that a shard of pink? What is that running along the edge? Is that what I think it is? Fueled by faint knowledge and the draw of previous findings, I was hooked. From side to side, I staggered along the potholed road, chasing glimmers, thoughts and perceptions. I knew it was there. I just had to look until I found it. I never once thought the trove barren. I just had to take another step, turn a couple more stones, not be moved by the others who told me there was nothing there.

Turn, turn, turn. Yes! There it was. I knew it! Pink quartz in ordinary gravel. Though some thought it without value, I knew it was the most amazing stuff. It was just beautiful to me and I knew that God had hidden it away just for me to find. Pure gifts… and those little treasures brought me such great joy. I simply could leave nothing behind. I would pick it up, take it home and wash it, and place it with my private collection… and oh what I collection I had. By the time the box was full, it was too heavy for me… so it rested in a secret place. The box stayed securely tucked under my bed, because I thought to leave them out in the open would be to advertise my wealth to others, and that seemed like bragging to me.

You see, I had stumbled into a gold mine and could not believe my good fortune. Nor could I understand that others might be immune to its draw. How could anyone walk past this beauty without stopping to gather some for themselves? One glimpse, one holding of the bounty in my hand, and I was captivated. The stones paths were treasure fields to me.

Much the same has happened in my study of the Word. Though I in no way want to infer that the Word is a stony field, I have come to find that the words flowing upon the pages have become (to many) an ordinary and mundane thing. So often have they walked these pathways, they no longer take time to notice the stones, much less stop and turn them. They tread the obvious, and never take the time to hunger for the hidden. They love the beautiful jewels mined by others, but rarely consider their own propensity for digging. They have no tolerance for the dust that gets kicked up when searching on their own.

It only took one uncovering, one vein of true beauty to hook me. It was the simplest of moments. It was four words that released the rainbow of color, unleashed the hunger for the other side of the Word. Four words slowed me down and made me allow the others to run on ahead as I kicked up dust and got my hands in the dirt. Brilliant, incandescent and pure, the colors of eternity rose from the page and I grabbed the treasure that would fill my heart and send me on an unending, stone turning quest… four little words:

“In the beginning, God…”

And that, dear one, is what I call Eternal Pink Quartz… AHHHHH.