Round as a Stone

Gladys Taber, author of The Best of Stillmeadow: A Treasury of Country Living, gives a good analogy of storms in our lives:

"The beach itself is a lesson in time. I pick up a tiny shell which has been polished and shaped by the waves but still keeps it original shape. As time goes on, it will become part of the sand. Here and there a shiny pink pebble is left when the tide ebbs, and this too is on a course. It will roll and sweep forward with the tide and retreat with the tide. And always it will be shaped, smoothed, rounded and lessened until it too is a grain of sand.

"As I pick up a cool pebble and hold it in my palm, it seems to me that the tide of life shapes me in much the same way. An edge is polished off in a great storm of grief, a jagged point is smoothed away by disappointments, disillusionments which have been faced. Gradually life polishes the stone. The surface of a small pebble is satiny. It feels cool to the palm.

"So it is with people, I think. If the core of the stone is sound, the wearing away by the tide results in a smooth oval. If the core is soft, there is no pebble left after a few nor'easters. I have known people buffeted by life mercilessly who still give me a sense of serenity. The integral core was sound. And I have known people who disintegrated at the first blow as a bit of clay exposed on the great beach dissolves in the first turn of the tide."

Taber wrote over 50 books, including fiction, nonfiction, cookbooks, children's books, plays, poetry and more. Her best loved books are her series about her life at Stillmeadow, her farm in the then rural country of Connecticut, as well as at Still Cove, her smaller home on Cape Cod. She also wrote on general topics for Ladies Home Journal and Family Circle.

Her book on Stillmeadow is enjoyable as you find yourself in her world and God's nature.

Yes, storms sure do buffet us and throw us around, trying to knock us down. That's why it's so important to have a deep settled confidence of our faith in our very being so we don't let the storms of life carry us away.

"Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

Hebrews 4:16

I want to be round as a stone, smooth and sound because I know my God, and I live my faith. Don't you?

By His Grace . . .