During a trip to the Pacific Northwest, I had the opportunity to travel to the beach with my daughter to look for sea glass. Much like treasure hunting, it was a fun excursion. Sea glass hunting also provides a good excuse to walk along the coast and take in the scenery.
Sea glass is comprised of broken pieces of discarded bottles that have been weathered by the salt and sand of the ocean. The physical interaction of the salt, sand, and movement of the waves gives the glass pieces a frosted appearance and smooth, rounded edges. This process occurs over a period of twenty years or more. The result is a unique and beautiful creation of natural processes that is sometimes used to make jewelry.
Ironically, even a piece of glass that fell from a ship miles out at sea is transformed most when it is closest to the shore. The impact of the waves on the glass pieces as they tumble toward shore acts much like a rock tumbler, continually agitating the glass against the sand. Eventually, the process is completed and the transformed pieces wash up on the beach as beautiful works of natural art.
The same God that counts the hairs on our head and numbers the sparrows in the sky is the same God that counts every one of the broken pieces of our life. Like the ocean that is calm one moment and stormy the next, brokenness makes us feel adrift at sea on a good day and overcome by the waves on a stormy day.
Our lives may at times seem like broken pieces of sea trash adrift on an ocean. But the living Lord will redeem those pieces as we are being transformed by the very thing we thought would destroy us. In God’s hands, every broken bit of sea glass is a beautiful work of art.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time”. Ecclesiastes 3:11
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Copyright@ TA Boland 2023
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