Sticks and stones

We finished up our summer camp weeks last week with a wonderful Family Day at which we heard the encouragement to continue encouraging one another – and then promptly put the desire into action. There were members from around Belgium and the Netherlands, including the French-speaking congregations in Belgium. I love what camp can do for people. Placing yourself together in the middle of God’s creation opens your eyes to who He is and who we can and should be.

And that is what I love so much about how we are created. One day during family camp I was privileged to be asked by a few of the young boys: “Look at my stick collection!” They had just been on a walk in the woods and had gathered all sorts of sticks. “This one is a slingshot … and a gun.” Sticks of all shapes and sizes which, in the eyes of these guys, had all sorts of possibilities.

This reminded me so much of my son Stephan, who will soon be marrying and moving even further away for a few years. When he was young, a walk down the street to the kindergarten took quite a while. This was not only because as a 3 year-old his legs were a good bit shorter than mine. Mostly it was because he loved looking at the stones along the way. There were always some amazing stones to look at. The shining white ones. This one with a black stripe in it, or that one with speckles. The shape of another reminded him of something else. He saw beauty and wonder in all these simple things along the way.

I still have the box full of the stones he gathered then. And I still thrill at the wonder that God has given us for the simple things in life – things that many would say are ordinary. We are truly made in His image, able, if we are willing, to see the marvelous in everything mundane.

Have you looked at a stick collection recently?