{Joining Amber at The Run A Muck for her concrete word prompt writing series on Monday’s. Today we are writing on the word, rock. Join me at Amber’s where a wonderful community is gathering around the abstract.}

When the air is hot, steamy humid southern summer style, trademarked by its moist heat, they hold the cold.

They bear relief.

Stone cold stares of people I have known, revealed again in the smooth strength of boulders. Unwavering. Unflinching. Heavy, solid mountain variety.

Slate grey’s and shale ash, cool their colors. Relief found in the sight of them.

And on that mountain porch, the one on the front of that house built in 1908, we tip back on green chairs. In a line like the Rockettes we rock back and forth to the rhythm of the crickets. Music from the valley calms the night. Black night air blows in cool from over the rock laden mountains, bringing relief from the heat of the day.

He tips back and forth, stares straight out with the calm cool stare, the mountain stare, all worry and anxiety gets left down in the lowlands. This place offers relief. He puts his cares on ice. Once his bags are packed and the altitude changes to something well above the sea level life we live, he chills.

Twenty-fifth anniversary looming ,the rock of all these ages of my life still bears up the burden of the four of us. We lean hard on him.

The chip off the old block, first born is gone. He learned of life from the rock at the mothership, how to anchor a life on hard work. How to avoid running aground, steering clear of the rocky coast lines.  And one day soon there will be someone leaning hard on him. And they will lean on Him.

The getting up and rolling out on four wheels in the morning to support a trio of kids, growing, going, gone. One gone and another one’s on the way out. Rolling out and on to college in a few more months. I lean in hard and bear all my weight on his strength.

Those green chairs on that porch wait for him to prop up and cool down and stare again into the valley. The flinty stares into the fog help clear the mind of the rock on which I lean. More of a boulder really on most days.

 But we stand on Him together. And when our footing gets slippery, like the sliding rock we go down with the children to the pool of moutain water waiting at the bottom, we stand again, straighter, taller leaning on Him and standing on His rock.

And now some days he rocks, or sort of sways and it looks child-like. Self-calming, a slow and steady back and forth.

The worries fall, like an avalanche, off of men and man.

We’d crumble, crack, roll down the mountain if it weren’t for this firmament, the foundation He gave and gives, in the new of every day. I can see the days of the way ahead in the now. Rocking off into the sunset of our years.

His words a lullabye to the weary. We rocked those babies endlessly at night, noon and morning. And it soothed us too. Calmed the mother and father of the babies as we fell asleep with them on our laps. Rocking away the cares of a day. While rocking a baby or two to sleep at night.

This man who put a white rock on my left hand nurtures babies like a woman. He brings home the bacon, cracks the eggs, rocks babies and cooks the bacon too.

We stumble, we fall, we roll Humpty Dumpty off the wall of this life, but unbreakable is he.

On solid rock we stand.

With the soundtrack of our life playing The Reverend Al Green, always.

Joining Laura at The Wellspring and Jen.