Picture yourself standing close to shore, on a beach or at the ocean’s edge. The place is strewn with pebbles of every size and shape.

The air is salty-fresh and breezy and sunlight glimmers on the waves, like tiny, silvery fish dancing back and forth.

The pebbles that draw your eyes are shiny and bright, sluiced clean by the watery tides. Those in your pockets reveal their jagged edges by pricking holes through the fabric of your clothes.

Those you hold in your hands soon feel far too heavy to grip. They represent your problems, anxieties, and cares. Yet you hold them close to your heart because they’re a vital part of who you are.

They also act as vivid reminders of your loved ones, family and friends, with all their complex circumstances, worries and needs.

As you let one problem-pebble slip through your fingers, you pick up another and another as though you’re in a trance.

Your eyes brim as you gaze helplessly out to sea because you cannot stop collecting more and more, and the weight of them makes you feel overwhelmed and weak.

How can you let these pebbles go? How can you shed this unwanted burden, this heavy load?

Then you become aware of a voice that calls to you across the waves. It’s the voice of One who walks on water, calms the stormy seas, and bids unruly waves become still as can be.

This is the voice of One who is achingly familiar, a person you know deep in your soul, right down to your toes, even though he’s invisible.

This is your Burden-Bearer, who wants to lift each load you carry, whether large or small.

He invites you to drop these problem-pebbles at his feet, one by one, for a time, at least, and to breathe in his gifts of calm and peace.

As you turn your eyes toward the skies, you believe you can see his beautiful face, full of benevolence, compassion, love, and grace.

While the weight slowly lifts, and you feel lighter by degrees, you sense his arms holding you close, like a prayer, a plea.

Jesus reminds you of his constant presence with you in everything, and how he died and rose to life again to rescue you from earthly chains.

Healing tears are shed as you kneel and rearrange the fallen pebbles, knowing you will probably be tempted to collect them again.

And you shape them into an altar of sorts, a foundation of uneven stones to mark this moment as a sacred act of remembrance you can recall in days to come.

Pebble

In this labyrinth of quiet
you drop to your knees

like a penitential 
pebble in deep sea

where you swim soft
believe and receive

prayer is an opening
a pathway we tread

it’s the life we live
and our daily bread

as we let go our cares
and embrace his peace

we trace his hand everywhere
God gives us the ability

one day we discover
just how much we are loved

our silent soul lover
speaks into our hearts
© joylenton