Although I’ve never had one, rock tumblers have always fascinated me.
If you didn’t know, a rock tumbler is a hobbyist machine that turns rough, unpolished stones into smooth, gleaming gemstones by simulating the natural tumbling action of rivers and oceans. It works by continually rotating a barrel filled with rocks, water, and progressively finer abrasive “grit” over several weeks.
On one hand, that seems like a long time to wait for a result, particularly in our age of Amazon Prime and on-demand streaming.
On the other hand, since rivers and oceans take thousands of years to accomplish the same thing, it feels pretty miraculous.
It occurs to me that parenthood is kind of like a rock tumbler.
It’s a tool that God uses to shape us into a better version of ourselves.
Kids are the grit.
It would seem that the more of them you have, the more polished and perfect you can become.
That is, IF you surrender yourself to the process and “roll with it” as it were. (Sorry for the Dad joke; it can’t be helped.)
It’s common to view parents as the ones doing the molding and shaping. And we do. But I’ve come to see the polishing goes both ways.
As my three kids have grown up, I have been delighted to see the different personality traits and talents that have emerged.
I have also been horrified to discover they’ve inherited some of my worst qualities and idiosyncrasies, the ones I try so hard to hide and pretend don’t exist.
And I have been perplexed by how different they can be from one another.
The apples may not fall far from the tree, but they sure do roll in different directions.
In their own unique ways, each of my children has taught me something about myself and about God. Through this rumble tumble process of parenthood, I’ve slowly grown in my understanding of how He is working in me. My kids have been catalysts that have made me more patient, sensitive, selfless, disciplined, and courageous.
Meanwhile, I’m grateful that I’m not a parish priest, who has more children than the old lady who lived in the shoe.
Because yes, although I can only speak from my own perspective, I suspect this rock tumbler analogy goes beyond parenthood. No matter our vocation, the relationships in our lives are the grit God uses to shape us and smooth us into beautiful replicas of his Son.
In Matthew 5:48, Jesus implores us to “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”
Um, sure.
Although we might wonder why Jesus couldn’t have lowered the bar to something less, I don’t know, impossible, it might be worth thanking Him for giving us the means to get there.
It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s not a particularly comfortable process, and it can be dizzying. (I can imagine the rocks feel the same way.)
But the comfort of adopting this rock tumbler metaphor is that it gives purpose to the struggle and the suffering. When we wonder why it’s so hard, why progress feels so slow, and how on earth we can keep going, we can be reminded that it’s all serving a greater purpose.
We are slowly but deliberately being polished into the saints we are called to become.
May it inspire us to pray for the patience we need to persevere on our path to perfection.
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