Making friends with a rock

Sioux Falls, SD - I was just going out for a walk. A little distraction while waiting for a ride to the airport. If you do any type of exercise you need to go 30 or 40 minutes to get any benefit. I didn't really have a course, I just set out on foot and went to it. After about 20 minutes of treking across the parking lot and over to the mall I found them. Two rocks.

I kicked the black one away, (kinda symbolic of a situation I was dealing with. I wantetd to just get right of it for a while. It hurt. It wasn't something I was prepared to deal with.) I kept marching kicking the rock a little more, then finally i just let the stone fly. It felt good. It was like saying so long problems because I was walking away. About 10 minutes later I backtracked on the same route. I went over and looked at the rock, picked it up. Of course as you remember it had a white color to it and the gold on the sides. I put it in my pocket. Then I walked over to the other rock, you remember the black one. What happened next stunned me. The black rock was situated next to a little pebble, very close to the pebble. The pebble had its own unique texture and look, but it was the black stone that made me stop. I picked it up. I saw little specks of white on the black rock. Like they were woven into it.

Still curious, I pulled the white rock out of my pocket. I rubbed the black and white stone together. Wouldn't you know. Those same whitish marks came from the rubbing of the white and golden stone on the black rock. I kept rubbing more and more of the dark scuffed away. But something also happened to the lighter rock. It became smoother. The parts that rubbed off on the black rock were smoothed off. The Black rock also had its smooth parts.

I almost cried. I realized this was an object lesson about a friendship with a person who was struggling. A person who needed a friend, a confidant and I needed to be involved with them. That I couldn't check out or quit.

Here's the moral of the story. Our friends need us in their trials and struggles and when we get involved we leave a mark on them and we make their paths smoother. But, the other point, we need them. We need to help and be invested in helping in the lives of our friends. Its in the tough times, the rubbing of adversity that you connect in the lifes of others...and in the the connecting you are molded and your life is smoothed out as well.

Know your limits. Know what is safe for you. But, don't run from your friends in times of need. Stand your ground on what you know is right, but don't withhold yourself from your friends.

I can't wait to tell this story.