Building Walls

“You’ll find the right stone at the right time.”

We were driving through the Irish countryside on a motorcoach when our guide uttered this incredibly profound, almost prophetic word, in the midst of a simple explanation about Irish farming. He had pointed out the gorgeous stone walls that crisscross the hillsides. He said they don’t use mortar, they just stack them, and that a kid’s worst kind of Saturday was when the parents said, “Come on, kids, you’re going stone picking.”

He said that he had originally been a horticulture student and that one time he had taken a job helping landscape a farm. He wasn’t sure what the job entailed till he got there, but the overseer told him they were going to build a wall. He told the boss that he had not ever built a wall, and the boss said just to make 3 stacks of stones: round ones, square ones, and weird ones. And then just start stacking them.

“You’ll find the right stone at the right time.”

I’ve thought a lot lately about my life’s choices and paths. My freshman RTI group read “The Road Not Taken” last week and it always gets me in my feels when I think about the different ways my life has turned out than what I expected. The truth is that my preference, as a high school graduate, would have been to know precisely every step between then and now… the spouse, the kids, the career, the details of every piece of it. But gosh, what excitement I would have missed along the way if I had known! And what needless anxiety I would have carried, anticipating circumstances that led to changes of course. 

What has actually transpired in my life is that I’ve found the right stone at all the right times. 

I didn’t marry the person I thought I would. Instead, I met and married the most perfect man for me.

I didn’t have a boy, a girl, and a boy like I had hoped. Instead, I got the sweetest two girls that were heaven sent and then, when I didn’t get to adopt a son 3 years after Kelsey was born, instead I got to adopt the most perfect 3 Filipino angels that perfectly completed our family.

I didn’t become a physical therapist. Instead, I have been blessed with 25 years of a career that has fulfilled me in ways I didn’t even know I needed to be fulfilled. And then, when I was given seniors after two years of sophomores and then yearbook after 17 years away from it, and freshman RTI instead of RISE… instead I got these awesome refreshing changes that gave me just the boosts I needed when I needed them.

All of these big things, yes, and then a thousand other little things… a photography side career for the perfect ten years for it, a shirt/creation business for the exact ten years that it fit, and now a travel business that’s providing the most incredible blessings just when I need them… a ministry that I have grown up with and evolved and changed as it has, a stone that I thought I wanted but I see so clearly now was not the right one… friendships that happened the perfect times, friendships that ended in the nick of time, and friendships that renewed at the most meaningful time… roots in the places that feel made for me, from my hometown to my homestead to my home retreat of Bear Paw.

I know that these “right stones at the right times” didn’t just happen. I know that they were ordained. And stones for me have always held precious meaning, so I know that the moment on the bus the other day was a message that came from a place much deeper than a tour guide explaining the countryside. 

So today, God, in this hotel room in Killarney, Ireland, I thank you for all the times you place the right stone at the right time for me. You are so good.