Kick Rocks Harbor Cov

Hey Harbor Cov!

I stumbled across an account on Instagram (@Shirtzenpants) where this guy named Owen kicked a rock around for 200 days and 210 miles. What fascinated me about this story was how the rock started out as a jagged and rough stone, and by day 200 it had lost hundreds of grams of sharp edges and rounded out to a smooth sphere.

He named the rock “Christosphere.”

First of all… I appreciate the follow-through and tenacity Owen had to do this every day, and I am impressed he didn’t accidentally kick Christosphere into a drain or off a cliff. It was also a very clever marketing stunt for his thrift store in Portland… where you can visit Christosphere. 

But the whole story of this little rock is very illustrative of relationships. The best ones are in it for the long haul and leave you transformed by all the time and love spent together. 

As I reflect on relationships I have with people who have loved me… I have to say they have softened my edges too. Sure, there’s probably some metaphor in there about how it took a lot of kicking me around to soften me up, but I know for sure I am who I am partly because of who they are in my life: My wife, my kids, my siblings, my parents, my friends, my coworkers - they have all intentionall loved me and that has made a huge difference for me. 

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul talks about how we get incomplete reflections or glimpses of who we are becoming in Christ through his love, and trusting that in the end we will fully realize the type of person we are becoming in Him. I find that so helpful when I just feel like I am being kicked around like Christosphere. My rough edges are being smoothed out. I am being shaped into something better. 

I don’t know where you’re at, but I do know that one of the ways God loves us is through other people loving us, and conversely, one of the ways God loves other people is through us loving those other people. 

So take some time this week to do two things. 

Go kick rocks, Harbor Cov.