SKIPPING ROCKS WITH JESUS

We meet on Medicine Bow Mountain in southeastern Wyoming, near the top at Lake Marie; serene, isolated, fed by glaciers. The temperature is a balmy seventy-five degrees with a chuckling wind that alternately blows and gently puffs. The peaks above us are still blanketed with snow, while the ground at our feet is grassy and dotted with flowers. Brilliant white clouds hover, so close they leave shadows. Birds twitter, gossiping among themselves in branches, while a lone eagle soars through the blue, blue, sky. I inhale the freshness that lingers after a heavy rain and think it must smell like this all the time here.

I am struck by the contrasts; warm sun, icy water of the lake, colorful wildflowers poking their heads through patches of snow scattered across the ground like throw rugs tossed around haphazardly, lingering remnants of winter mingling freely with summer’s color and playfulness, His dusty sandals lined up alongside my wet ones. (In my eagerness I stepped into the water while wearing them.)

Jesus and I sit side by side on a flat-top rock with our bare feet dangling in the cold water, skipping rocks across the glassy lake surface. Actually we swish our feet in and out because the water is too cold for dangling, but it does feel good. His rock out paces mine by far. I see it skipping beautifully across the top of the water. Of course it did. He is Jesus. There is no way I could outdistance him, though I have tried a few times.

We laugh together at my final attempt at skipping rocks, when my pebble zig-zags crazily across the ground, finally plopping unceremoniously into the water at the edge of the lake. I stumble sometimes, get off course, and bounce around aimlessly for a while, before coming to rest once again in the life giving waters, the source of all, Jesus Christ.

I talk to my dear, trusted friend. I tell him all I am feeling, thinking, the things for which I am grateful and for which I am sorry, what I love about him and don’t particularly like about myself, what I wish was different, don’t understand, and hope for. His eyes are on my face as He listens intently to my prayers; nodding somberly, or alternately smiling at appropriate moments.

I tell him of a few times (there were more than a few, but so many that it would take forever to tell them all) when I let my silly, playful side run free with often hilarious results. He laughs deeply, His shoulders shaking. I know He has heard these stories before, actually watched them as they unfolded, but like the kind and loving friend He is, He listens and eagerly waits for the punch line.

I whisper of the long period when I was broken and my many regrets. Twin tears trickle down His cheeks as He puts an arm across my shoulders, pulls me close as He responds, “Great brokenness leads to great beauty. I pieced you back together into the person I desired you to be. Every step you took led you here, to me, where you are greatly loved, and we can sit in the sunshine together and laugh.”

Perhaps this was only an imagined time of prayer and conversation with my Lord, Jesus Christ. Perhaps it was it much more. Isn’t this how we’re always supposed to be with our Lord?