Beauty in the Broken

We went to the beach today with some of our dearest friends. It was an absolutely perfect day. Rhonda and I were sitting and chatting while the kids played in the water, in the sand and of course looking for sea shells. Ansley came running up to me with 3 shells in her hand. She was so excited and so proud of her find.

Then I looked at them.

All 3 of them were broken. And if I'm honest, just plain ugly.

I gave her a fake, "oh aren't they nice!!" and threw them into my bag. I was totally unimpressed.

As the day went on however, I began to think of those 3 broken shells more and more.

We are those shells. I am those shells.

Thankfully, we don't have a Father who fakes excitement with us when we bring ourselves to Him. We have a Father who is genuinely overjoyed when we bring our broken lives to His throne of grace. Our Father cleans us up, shines us up until we sparkle so that the whole world will see Him in us.

The enemy on the other hand, doesn't want us to think that. He wants to remind us how broken we are. He wants us to dwell on the fact that some lots of the things in our past are just plain ugly. He tries to tell us that our Father could never be proud to call us His own.

I know how often I have listened to the Enemy instead of my Father. It can be a daily (sometimes hourly) struggle. But I must remember that if my Father knows how many hairs are on my head, if He knows how many grains of sand there are in the world, then surely he cares about a broken shell.

And how much more does He care about me.


I think I may clean these up and shine them until they sparkle so that I will have a daily reminder.

How deep the Father's love for us,

How vast beyond all measure

That He should give His only Son

To make a wretch His treasure