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Recently, a dear friend had decided that for my birthday, she would give me her Heart Stone. Up until then, I was unfamiliar with the story behind them, so I want to take the time to share the message with you.
Somewhere on Cape Cod, a woman who was battling cancer had decided to bring a stone that had been naturally formed into the shape of a heart, to each of her chemotherapy treatments. She found it soothing to hold during those difficult times; and when she had recovered, she sought out those Heart Stones along the shores of the beach. Each stone found it’s way into the hands of a woman who was on the same difficult path of chemotherapy treatment. The idea is that when you give a heart stone, “you give what you have filled it with: strength, love & confidence.”
Each and every one of us is struggling a battle of some sort; some struggles are just more visible than others. I am not battling cancer, but my life is in a state of transition right now. We all arrive at moments in our lives where we can either let something crush us, or we can decide to use it to let it shape us into something beautiful, something with purpose.
For it is not just a rock that happens to look like a heart- it is so much more than that. I think about how this very stone was created under intense heat, buried deep below the surface, compressed under pressure and then was eventually unearthed again. The upheaval, the unearthing, the breaking away from the larger source, the friction met by other stones each smoothing hard and sharp edges. Every hit that left a pit, a scar, an indentation- each helped shape it into the form that it is below. It was never just a rock- it was just on a long journey, much longer than you or I will ever really understand, until the moment arrived when my dear friend came across it’s path. So many others just passed it by, never really understanding the story of this little stone. But not her. She saw it for what it is: a message of strength, love and confidence to each of us to keep on our own journeys. Our journey often holds moments of friction, pressure, heat, upheaval and unearthing- but it all leads us to a greater purpose. It shapes us into something beautiful with purpose.
