Today is the final day of A Fresh Look at the Beauty found in Ordinary Things. The 31 Days series is completed with gravel.

When I choose the list of ordinary items I wanted to include some that would seem obviously to have beauty, like cats and dogs, and some that would be challenging, like gravel and potatoes. After hunting for beauty in the ordinary for a number of years I knew I could find beauty in the humblest rocks.

I want to get to actual gravel, but allow me to start with other rocks. If I had listed rocks, some might have thought of things like big diamonds, since they are called rocks. I wanted us to think of commonplace rocks. The only difference between a lump of coal and a diamond is pressure. They both consist of pure carbon. Sometimes the difference between something prized and another thing dismissed can be very simple. 

Gravel was as humble as I could pick out. Common and unappreciated rocks are used to line driveways and backcountry roads. Leftover rocks for the most part make up gravel.

Have you ever looked closely at wet gravel? Some of the stones are quite striking. Granites, and marbles are mixed in with sandstone and slate. All of the left overs from stone quarries and industrial production ends up in the mix.

Gravel is made up of the fragments of the rock world. They are the bits that no one else wanted.

Have you ever felt like human gravel? 

Most people do at some point. We all experience the school dance we weren’t invited to, or the club we weren’t chosen for, or the job we didn’t get or phone call that never came.

The beauty of gravel is that it has a new life. The beautiful red granite sliver that did not make it onto the countertop in the designer kitchen is part of a path. The richly veined black marble that did not become a piece of someones’ floor is keeping the dust down on someone else’s driveway.

No matter how small the piece there is a new use.

I have a miniature, indoor garden that I planted in a Wardian Case. The garden has a little path, bench and arbor. The entire garden is less than twenty inches long. The gravel in the path is minute. I water the garden by misting it with a plant-sprayer. When the gravel is wet it shimmers. They are beautiful stones, even though they are mere specks.

Not one of us is less important for all our sense of our own status.

In reality it doesn’t matter how many Facebook friends we have, or how large our platform may be. The size of our family and the size of our bank account are equally as meaningless. The truth is that each one of us is of so much value that God Himself came and died on the cross to bear the burden for our sinfulness.

If you are sitting alone in a nursing home you are every bit as important as the most photographed celebrity. The hard-working fast-food worker is as rich as those on the Forbes 400.  You are priceless!

Don’t ever think of yourself as leftover or overlooked. You have not been forgotten. You were planned before the creation of the universe and given a place and role that only you can fill.

“…just as He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before Him in love”.-Ephesians 1;4

You are worth more than diamonds. You are part of God’s divine plan. Even if you feel like you have been placed in the gravel pile. You are made for a purpose. You are an important piece of a path. No one else is like you. No one can take your place.

You are a rock!