The Man Watering Rocks

He was watering rocks with a hose, when I pulled into the driveway of a neighborhood I didn’t know.

Car piled with kids, an address found from Google Maps. Two lamps I was drawn to, that I couldn’t let go of.

I have been stuck in the Grand Canyon lately, hoping my way to higher ground. Looking around at the carcasses, the painted evidence of a God who loves us…

Yet, needing a reminder that…

The God who makes the valleys, never wants to leave us there.

The loss of my father removed a large bolder in places no one could see; and the deficit of his tangible presence, left it’s own canyons in me.

I have been looking up and looking around, for evidences that God is still good.

Then, I drive to this house with the stranger watering.

Two wicker laps call out to me, and my spirit is drawn to retrieve them.

The man with the hose glows and calls to his wife through the open door.

And we all need open doors, sometimes, don’t we?

A striking lady emerges. She is thin and graceful and escorts me into her home that looks like it’s out of the latest magazine.

I feel warmth from this couple; a simple, gentle familiarity, as if companions from a different lifetime.

Then, she emerges with my wicker lamps. My heart dances. They are even more stunning than the Marketplace photo I had seen them on.

“You have nine kids?” The man stood at the car and befriended my oldest, all the doors still open.

“No, only eight…Kind of. Our two youngest are foster kids.” I correct the shock of my reality, though I realize how heavy the words I just said were.

Fostering can be a funny thing.

It is one of the least glamorous jobs, that often gets the most criticism. It can be suspect and tiresome.

A survey was just done yesterday, asking foster parents to rate their level of exhaustion from 1-10. The answers?

“10”…

“10”…

“10”…

Across the board.

Some even wrote “12” or more, just to make the point that fostering is a beyond human job.

No, we are not saints. However, the strength we receive is clearly from above.

I know, I crumbled at one child. My arms weary, my mind spent….But “eight”?

Did I just say I had “eight children”?

Just then, the man who had been holding the hose of water instructed his wife to give my money back. The money from two already a steal-of-a-deal, high end lamps.

I had researched them. I knew their worth was already 10 fold of what I was paying.

I argued with the return of my money. I did not feel worthy. I could not grasp such generosity.

The gesture ripped apart places my heart had shut; showed me the colors on the walls of the canyon I had been stuck in.

No, this season wasn’t just difficult, there was beauty all over it, hope pointing towards it, and good people still left in this least churched region in the nation. People still giving, still living like Jesus.

The woman then asked if I was a Christian. “Yes”, was my simple answer.

I clung to Him like the woman with the blood disorder, and ached for Him like Zacchaeus who desperately sought to see Him.

Had my life been vibrant lately? No! I had been changing feeding tubes and waking up at 4:00 a.m. to feed a baby who had been addicted to Fentanyl.

My house has been a revolving door of social workers, five different therapist who needed to treat the children in my home; not counting social workers and nurses, program coordinators and evaluation experts for disabilities.

I had lost this call that was given to me, in diaper changes and phone calls, court documents and agendas pulling at me right and left.

Who was I in this call of foster care and loss? This promise that wasn’t the Instagram photo of easy? This purpose that drug me through the dirt until I needed my own washing, internally, where no one else could see?

We talk more, this couple and I, on that porch in that quiet neighborhood, with the door open, and children watching.

I learn the woman was a designer, the man, part Filipino. My three adopted daughters in my car are Samoan and Tongan.

It’s a small world after all.

They refuse the return of the money I had given them. Then, I see the pillows on the floor, the ones I’d also wanted to purchase, but knew we couldn’t afford them too.

We stand outside and the man with the hose says, “You wanted the pillows, right? Honey, go get those for her too.”

I was speechless, overwhelmed by the goodness and generosity of these strangers.

I didn’t ask for them. I didn’t share my hearts desire, or try to give a pity story.

In fact, I am the one always giving things away, offering the bed to the young boy who had been a missionary, things to people who came and shared their stories or their need.

And yet, how easy to give, but much harder to receive.

The man loaded the pillows and lamps in my car, we shut the hatch, and my heart just wanted to explode.

How could this really be happening?

I thanked the couple profusely, waved and drove away.

It was then, the tears started coming. God, how could you be so good to me? Lamps, reminding me, He is the Light! And the truth that…

No amount of hopelessness or discouragement can stop the light He gives.

And that man? The one watering the rocks when I came…It was so strange, and yet, so clearly imprinted on me like some prophetic image God was sending down from heaven.

Then, I got it. I understood!

His water is the Spirit. “The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Genesis 1:2, I knew it well.

And the rock. “The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.”

I found the Amplified version of Psalms 18:2-3 in the Bible:

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and the One who rescues me;
My God, my rock and strength in whom I trust and take refuge;
My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower—my stronghold. 
I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised;
And I am saved from my enemies.”

My shield. My strength. My refuge. He has seen me all along.

I was not in a canyon, hoping for a way to get out. I am on the Rock, given the Light of His salvation to guide me all my days.

And friends, maybe today, you have been feeling a little weighed down and heavy too.

He is your water of life gushing on the Rock too. He is alive and moving and wants to place His light in every corner of your home where it has been getting dark or your heart has been weary too.

Ask Him and He will answer you. Call upon His name and He will be near.

A little farther down in Psalms 18, it says, “For You cause my lamp to be lighted and to shine; The Lord my God illumines my darkness.” Verse 28.

He wants to turn our nights to days, to be our hope, and guide our ways.

And sometimes, He uses a man who is watering rocks and two generous strangers to do it.

Don’t be surprised by who you are engaging with around you, because it may not just be strangers in front of you…

But angels God sends to encourage you and to show you…

No amount of darkness can can stop what God is doing.