We love picking up shells from the beach. We’ve gathered so many, I don’t think we even know what to do with them anymore, but we still pick them up almost every time we come to the beach, which is often in the summer.
Today is no different, we’re at the beach and my daughter and her best friend have started gathering shells. I’ve noticed something today that I don’t think I did before. Both my daughter and her best friend seem to almost seek out the broken shells. Us adults tend to look for the ones that have been perfectly formed, no holes or no part broken. As I’m starting to look through their eyes, I realize that i don’t have to look for perfection, and as I’m looking for the shells, I’m realizing that there is tremendous beauty in the shells that aren’t perfect. Some of them have colors that the perfect ones don’t have. Some of them have been in the water so long that their edges are no longer jagged, but are perfectly smooth because of the constant force of the water.
As I’m spending more time with my daughter and watching how she interacts with others, she’s teaching me why Jesus says we have to be like little children to enter the Kingdom. She is teaching me that there is beauty in brokenness. She is teaching me to love unconditionally and beyond myself. She is teaching me how to exercise faith.
Sometimes we spend so much time focusing on what’s not ‘right’ with others that we end up missing their beauty.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the lessons we are learning through nature and through our children. Continue to show us that true perfection only comes from you, and that our past does not define who we are and even in our brokenness you are able to complete and use us for your kingdom.