My rock (ing chair)

My parents tell a story of waking in the early morning hours to the irritating squeak of the springs on a toy rocking horse that was a Christmas present for my brother. It was a 16-month-old me. My brother got very little time on his rocking horse, according to their story. Apparently, I pretended it was mine and acted as such.

Santa brought me my own rocking chair the next Christmas. It being 1980, the rocking chair was a brown striped tweed material with orange vinyl accents. I think it may have matched my mother's living room assemble, horrifyingly enough. It was miniature - perfect for a three-year-old. I rocked in it until the sliders at the bottom literally broke off. It was a sad, sad day when we had to throw that rocking chair in the dumpster.

I developed terrible stomach pains in middle school. They would come on quickly and stay for minutes, hours, and sometimes days. There was no medicine that proved to lessen the pain, and doctors would come up empty handed as to what was causing the pain. I would sit, for as long as the pain lasted, in a brown-clothed rocking recliner that my granny gave my mother when we moved to Texas the summer before. I would rock and rock and rock, deliberately breathing in a Lamaze-type ritual that would help me make it through the pain. (Once we moved to Abilene, a doctor took a chance on the fact that, even as young as I was, I may have gallstones causing the stomach pain. He performed surgery to remove the gallbladder that was, as he suspected, full of stones.)

Granny gave us a blue glider not long after we moved to Abilene. It quickly became "mine." It was where I would go when I was rattled with adolescent emotions too confusing to speak about. It was where I went to work through whatever drama clogged my though processes. It was where I silently gathered my strength to be able to move away to college for a semester. (No rocking chair in Levelland, Texas proved to be a terrible idea so I came home to attend college that winter in Abilene.)

I have a white, wooden rocking chair here at my current place - two, actually. One is a backup, I guess, having learned from my 4-month stint in Levelland. I sit out on my balcony, no matter the weather, almost every day. It is a place to think. It is a place to sort out and process. It is a place to dream. It is a place of comfort.

David said in Psalms 71 "Be my rock of refuge.... (God) is my rock and my fortress..." Several more times, David couples the comforting thoughts of a fortress and refuge with God being a rock. Turn the noun (rock) into a verb (rocking) and you can see the special bond that I have had with God since I was old enough to climb onto a plastic, squeaky-spring rocking horse at 16 months.... He is my rock (ing chair). He helps me work through pain, physical or otherwise. He sorts out the emotions too confusing to speak about. He works through whatever drama clogs my thought processes. He supplies my strength to help me do what I am most certain I cannot do. He clears my head. He sorts and processes things. He hears and tweaks my dreams. He is my comfort. He is my refuge. He is my fortress. He is my rock (ing chair).