Every pebble has a story

 

Last month my blog was about a beach I’d visited in South Africa and how the black rocks reminded me of our stories, emerging from the shore of our imaginations.  This month I’m on a different beach. This one was in north-west Wales, just beyond Criccieth and a fifteen minute walk from the site of the 2024 Kingdom Writers’ Retreat – a wonderful break and a chance to match names and faces as well as meet friends who, until now, I’d only seen on a screen (spoiler alert: they have legs.  Who knew?).

Missing the extensive coast around Cape Town, I was very happy to make the trip down to the beach a couple of times over the weekend: once in blustery weather under scudding grey clouds, and once in beautiful sunshine.  Unlike the sandy beaches I’m more used to, this was a pebble beach with some very soft sand nearer the dunes.  

Crunching my way along the shoreline, avoiding a few stranded jellyfish, I found myself transfixed by the variety of shapes, colours and markings on the stones.  In truth, this is partly because having seriously damaged both ankles (and broken one) in the last couple of years, I am far more cautious than I used to be when walking on uneven surfaces.  

Every pebble has a story. 

I once took a beach walk with friends, including a geologist who pointed out intricate details in the rocks and stones as he unpacked their ancient stories for us.  Some were literally shattered by moments of huge impact or shift, exposing their innermost parts – a contrasting texture to the smooth outside they presented to the world.  Others showed signs of trauma: their scratches or 'striations' (thank you A’level geography) indicating the result of extreme pressure or movement of one rock on another which has subsequently been broken down into smaller pieces.  Pebbles with stripes in them show where a mineral deposit has crept into a fissure in times past, during a season of intense heat when the liquefied deposit has spread itself before subsequently cooling and solidifying.

We’re ‘not the only pebble on the beach’, but each of us has a story.  Our lives mirror those of one or other of the stones.  All of us have probably known times when we feel we’ve been dragged up and down a metaphorical beach; our corners have been knocked off and our edges are smoother than they used to be.  Some of us carry secret trauma and old wounds whether on display or hidden away deep within ourselves; others feel completely shattered yet carry an intrinsic beauty that displays the Creator’s hand. We all carry emotional wounds which, if we can keep them clean, add to the beauty of the whole.

Whether you choose to write your story in prose, or verse or not at all; whether you are published or not, you are a story that’s still being written and that brings pleasure to God.  Together, we are as different as those pebbles on the beach but each one is know by Him and He revels in the glorious variety of who we are and how He has made us.  ‘He has done all things well’ (Mark 7:37).

Enjoy whichever beach is within your reach this summer and look out for fascinating, beautiful pebbles.  Perhaps you'll be able to 'read' their stories.

Jenny Sanders has spent the last eleven years living between the UK and South Africa. She writes faith-inspired non-fiction: Spiritual Feasting (2020) asks how we can ‘feast’ when life serves unpalatable menus; Polished Arrows is available now, explores the allegory of  God shaping us to be fired effectively into our culture and contexts.               

Jenny also has two published collections of humorous short stories for Key Stage 2 children. She is available for author visits in primary schools, taking creative writing sessions. 

She loves walking in nature, preferably by a river, and has a visceral loathing for offal, pineapple and incorrect use of car indicators on roundabouts.