Diamonds and Stones

At last I had found peace; peace and quiet and a calmness of spirit that I hadn’t felt for a long time. It was late summer back in 2006, and my ordeal of prostate cancer was almost over. At least the surgery and acclimating myself to the changes in my life were nearly over. That being said, I was still struggling a bit mentally over the physical alterations brought on by the situation, but spiritually speaking I had reconciled myself to the current state of affairs and God’s hand in all of it. The hand of God was evident in the calming of my fears and in the help received as I struggled with my all too evident mortality.

I was traipsing through one of my favorite locales and one that I had last visited the day before heading down to Charleston for the aforementioned surgery. On that day, five or so months earlier, I had gone over to one of my childhood haunts, the old Porth pond, to do a bit of illegalish fishing, a little reminiscing about the joys of childhood and to try and forget about the coming day.

The illicit fishing went well as I recall with a couple of nice largemouth and a catfish or two making their reluctant way to the shore. Being little more than a child myself, the reminiscing was pretty successful as well, but the forgetting part left me wanting.

On this day however, five months later, I was doing fine. The dreadful fear was a thing of the past. The surgery and its side effects were fading, and life was good. My heart was light, my spirit was rising, my body was on the mend and my stringer was filling up with shellcracker and bream. The nightmare was coming to a close.  

There are times in this life when the Lord grants His children a glimpse of the peace and joy that awaits them over the Jordan, and this was one of those moments for me. I have always pictured Heaven as a well-stocked farm pond.

Relishing the closing of the day, I listened as the night sounds began. I heard a faint croak over to my left, deep in the reeds, and that was all that was needed for innumerable frogs to start calling to one another in the dusk. How they sort out who is who, I will never know. The crickets and other creepy crawlies of the swamp were in romantic moods themselves, and together they joined one another in their shadowy mating calls.    

In some this weird symphony might produce misgivings, but in me it produced calm.

As the sun sank and the shadows lengthened, I daydreamed of summer evenings past. Other such evenings when similar sights and sounds had held me close and comforted me; and as I dreamed I cast my bait about nonchalantly in the hope that perhaps there was one more nibble to be had before the darkness drove me homeward.     

All was shadows and silhouettes when to the right and a little behind an old stump the water swelled, wrinkling the surface and sending out the telltale concentric rings which indicate prey.  With a stutter step to the left to clear the pathway and an instinctual movement of the wrist I sent my deep blue 6” Culprit rubber worm sailing through the night air with pinpoint accuracy toward the center of those rings. As it took flight, however, an uneasy feeling of impending doom filled my breast for as I moved, a silhouette, previously hidden in the shadows, emerged from the darkness.

The ominous form of a feathery dreidel was hanging from a low lying branch. In slow motion I watched as my projectile entered one side and exploded out of the other. In an instant that silhouette, so peaceful a moment before, shattered into a thousand pieces, all angry and searching for a place to vent. It took a moment, but as one those hornets, now homeless by my hand, discovered the fishing line and following it to its origin, they set their affections on me.

Over the years I have faced black bears, razorback hogs and belligerent parishioners with an aplomb envied by many, but when those enraged hornets balled up and headed my direction, any pretense of confidence, manliness and macho I may have once possessed vanished in an instant. Throwing my Zebco 33 to the side I hiked my skirts and headed for the water just as fast as my legs would carry me. I just about made it too, but when salvation was at hand my foot happened to land on a snake. As the startled snake proceeded to dance about under my feet, and I did all but levitate trying to get off the thing, my mind quickly assessed the situation and realized that this particular snake was harmless. It was just a big old brown water snake.  

While all of this was going on, the hornets had paused to watch the show; but just as soon as the abovementioned snake broke free and slithered into the pond, they renewed their advance. As they made their final approach and got into attack formation, my mind said “Jump in. They can’t get to you there,” while my fear said ‘Say what? There’s a snake in there.” “It’s harmless!” shouted my mind. “Don’t care!” countered my fear.

My moment of indecision gave the hornets all the opportunity they needed, and taking full advantage, two or three drove that advantage home into one of the more fleshy parts of my anatomy while another particularly adventurous character managed to get up underneath my fishing vest and go to town. Now that the lesser of two evils had been established, I dove in hat and all.

Later, cautiously emerging, I found that the hornets had headed home to rebuild, the snake had vanished, licking his wounds elsewhere I suppose; and my hat was nowhere to be found. So, with a knowing grin, I sighed and headed home: my peace shattered, my pride tattered, and my rear-end stinging like the devil himself.

Life can be like that sometimes. To quote John Denver, “Some days are diamonds, and some days are stones.” I contend that most days are both. I suppose the key is to make all of the diamonds and all of the stones count, no matter what. They are all gifts from God above, and gifts are meant to be enjoyed. So cherish the peace and laugh at the turmoil. Enjoy the life God has given you, no matter what. You only get one chance, one life on this earth.  Enjoy it, make the most of it, and make every day count. Produce no regrets, only cherished memories.

That’s just a little free advice to be taken in a time of need.

Love,
Pastor Tony
 
  
 
 
     

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