The Creek Bank of Life

The Creek Bank of Life

Last Sunday, I took my middle daughter, almost four, to the creek near our house to look for arrowheads and fossils. We always make our girls wear water shoes in the creek, so they don’t cut their feet on the random glass mixed with the rocks.

But last Sunday, my daughter found a piece of glass on her own. She picked it up and held it out to me. I turned the shard over in my hand, seeing how the edges had nearly been worn smooth. For a moment, I stared down at that glass, wondering how it kept working its way to the surface because, whenever we find glass pieces, my husband and I throw them on the opposite bank, so our girls can’t get hurt.

Then I understood the obvious.

The creek is a flowing body of water, and when rain falls, the water rises over the bank, shifting what was there—depositing and taking—so that the creek bank we walk one week could be almost unrecognizable the next.

My daughter left me then, with that glass shard, and walked around the creek bank, happily looking for treasures, and I saw a picture of my own life, and of your life too.

Life is like that creek: always moving, always shifting—depositing and taking—so that the life we live one week could look quite different the next.

Sometimes, or many times, we put on metaphorical water shoes, so we can trudge through the creek of life without getting hurt. But then the rain falls, the water rises, flooding the banks, shifting the ground we have gained, and we try to find our way on this new terrain, remembering what we once knew intimately.

But life’s fluid movement brings with it treasures in addition to the glass. Imagine if that creek of life became stagnant: nothing coming in, nothing going out, so that the banks swelled but the water remained the same, turning green and toxic.

Sometimes, no doubt, it would be easier to have the creek of life to remain the same. But then, after a while, all the treasures would be found and the creek bank would lose its allure. Of course, there would no longer be glass to worry about. But there would also no longer be good things, sweet things, to search for amid the rocks.

This week, let’s keep exploring, keep searching, for the treasures tucked in with the glass. And even if we get cut, that small wound is a reminder that we are breathing, we are living; that the creek bank we are walking is always shifting—depositing and taking—and therefore we are miraculously, beautifully alive.

What/who are some “treasures” in your life?