Holidaying recently, I had reason to ponder some of the processes in our lives that are mirrored like flawless reflections in the natural world around us. It began at Kaihinaki, amidst the Moeraki Boulders. The alarm was set to predawn, and bracing against the chilly autumn temperatures I strolled among them at sunrise, awed by the large spherical concretions scattered before me.  Each created dancing shadows and reflections in the soft pastel light, drawing me in to their solid presence and their backstory. 

Concretions occur when minerals in the marine mudstone cause sediments to cement around a central focus, often organic in nature, perhaps a leaf or a whale tooth. Our Moeraki examples have formed concentrically with sediment collecting evenly around the centre, creating an endearingly globe-like profile. Scientists analysing them have found they are formed of mud, fine silt and clay, cemented together and encrusted by calcite, forming a hard protective layer. They’re softer in the middle, but really solid on their exterior, and their multiple cracks have been filled with coloured calcite, dolomite, and quartz adding beauty to their rounded forms. Simply stunning!

Boulders this size take a long time to form, the process and timeframe still mysterious. However, what is known is that they exist in the banks and landforms, being fashioned unseen, and then are birthed from the bank by the erosive action of the wild waves along the Koekohe Beach in Otago.

That got me pondering. Imagine if this were a gentle, serene coastline devoid of the wild Pacific wave forms. Or if the weather on the New Zealand coast was always favourable, balmy and gentle breezed. These magnificent concretions would still have been formed, still be present with their soft centres and hard exteriors, like one of those chocolate dipped ice creams you can only get at the theatre. They would still have their glorious quartz-lined cracks and crazy-paved outer shells, but we would not be privy to their existence. We wouldn’t be able to marvel at the shape, delight in their shadows and reflective pools, or wow at the sight of the sun rising beyond the boulders scattered like marbles across the foreshore and ponder the One who made them.

So it has been in my life, and perhaps in your life too. There are things formed in the harsh, hidden places of my being, built up around a central piece, something I’ve held tightly to. Things that are layered there with the mud and silt of my memories, my emotions, my troubled thoughts, and pounded into place under pressure until they hold together in a union too tight to break. Things that lie deep, concealed from public view, and buried in the mudstone of my past. 

Then, unannounced, without a marine forecast to herald its arrival, life happens. Storms brew. Winds howl, waves lash, tides pound, and my banks are eroded. Circumstances change, the things I thought secure are pulled apart, undermined, and carried away by the tide.

And just when I think things are falling apart, God unearths in me that which I’ve held to fiercely, and reveals it as a splendid spherical concretion, tumbling onto the beach in full view. A glorious boulder whose cracks don’t detract from its beauty, but instead sparkle with colours and hues and textures adding depth and wonder to the magnificence.

Over time the boulder is further exposed to the tempests, it cracks open, vulnerable and real, revealing its inner texture, and allowing the waves to wash through and form pools that mirror the light.

Standing on the beach this morning I’m awed not only by the beauty before me, but by the tender care of the Master. As I rest on a boulder split asunder, its centre creating a sheltered inner pool revealing the most beautiful reflections, my mind wanders to Psalm 84:

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the valley of Baca (weeping), they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength until each appears before God in Zion.

Oh how we long for calm conditions, gentle tides, and balmy breezes in our lives. For the absence of pain, for favourable outcomes and for opposition to dissolve. Yet today I wonder what would happen if we were willing to linger on and make room for the things that cause discomfort like boulders buried deep inside? To ask for strength to endure the storms, knowing it's these that allow the dross to be washed away, and expose the vulnerable beauty of what lies within.

For it’s these things, these cracked and crazy-paved concretions in us, that reflect his light to the world.