When I decided to have them delivered earlier this year - because yes, this was an actionable choice that I made, once - I was surprised by how small the pile looked to me. Three tons of landscaping river rock sounds like a mountain! ...But the pile respectfully stayed on its side of my driveway, and only covered a third of its half (that's a sixth, for you math wizards out there 😉). "Are you sure this will be enough?" I remember asking my mom naively.
I've had some minor run-ins with landscaping before, so I knew it wasn't going to be a fun time, but I started out as enthusiastic for manual labor as I was capable of being. I began on section one of three with guidance from my mom. When the time came, I grabbed my shovel and a wheelbarrow borrowed from a neighbor, and anxiously braced myself. Let's do this!
I thrust the metal shovel into the middle of the pile of rocks, imagining a scoopful gently falling into the cup and filling it up. Instead, I heard an awful clang and met hard resistance. A handful of cooperative rocks nudged their way onto the very edge of the shovel... and that's it. Ok, I thought. I'll try harder. The rocks were stubborn. They don't naturally roll, as countless songs and artists would lead you to believe. Once they've settled, they're perfectly content to stay put.
My technique improved over time - as counterintuitive as it sounds, it's easiest to shovel rock from the bottom, where it meets the ground at concrete-level - but the task itself never got any easier. Rock is heavy, and dirty, and difficult. Too much in the wheelbarrow, and you can't maneuver it. Not enough, and it's wasted effort. When I finished with the first section that day, exhausted, sore, and covered in dirt, I looked back at the pile of rocks, and was disappointed to find that the pile didn't look much different to me from when I'd started. This was a terrible mistake.
A friend confirmed my worst fears, later on: "Did your rock pile get bigger since the last time I saw it?" 😟
Even as I recruited help for other sections, the pile of rocks remained a constant in my life: always there, taunting me. "You'll never finish," it said. "You'll always have more to work on." "We'll always be here, blocking your path and weighing you down." You're not enough.
I finished my landscaping, recently... but the pile of rocks remains. (There never should've been a question as to whether the pile was big enough, I see now.) From some angles, it looks deceptively small, but I know how much effort is involved in each scoop. I know how much of a burden it is, even at its smallest. It tortures me, that it's still there after I've put so much work into it already.
In a lot of ways, my experience with the pile of rocks mirrors my own sanctification process. My past, my sins, my fears, my worries, my natural tendencies that are preyed upon by the devil... this is my pile of spiritual rocks. Some days, they don't seem like that much. Is this it? Other days, they feel impossible and overwhelming. I try to chip away at them earnestly some times, and other times I just stare at them as I go about my life. Once in awhile, I look at them and question if the pile is actually getting bigger?! But every day they're there, and usually I find them discouraging, not a measure of how far I've come.
The difference between my actual pile of rocks and my spiritual one, though, comes down to Christ. I may be responsible for moving the rock in my driveway, but the rock in my heart will be moved by Jesus as my faith continues to grow in Him. I can try to move it all by myself - but it's really a fool's errand out of a desperate desire for control. The only effort that is truly required by me is trusting Christ to shovel my mess, one scoop at a time. That sounds too easy, and I don't do that perfectly - not even close - but I do keep trying to just trust.
Some day very soon, the pile of rocks will be gone from my driveway. I'll hose off the concrete, and I'll admire the absence of the rocks. I'll celebrate, and I'll remind myself not to start anymore landscaping projects for a long while. In time, I'll forget the rocks were ever there. There will be no trace of them, they won't be a stumbling block and an eyesore, and I won't remember the agony they caused me.
As long as I'm here on this earth, I think there will always be a spiritual pile of rocks (although I hope it keeps shrinking - even if I can't always tell). But I hope that's how I feel about these internal rocks someday, too: here today, but gone tomorrow. A distant memory, a faded image, gone without a trace. "Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are." Romans 8:18-19
