Beach Glass

Have you ever had the privilege to walk on a beach and collect?  Shells, rocks, drift wood, feathers, it is all there before you.  My personal FAVORITE thing to fine is “beach glass”.   It is beautiful. 

Something was once useful, and quite possibly ordinary. 

Then it was shattered.

Over time the waves, sand and stone take the sharp edges and smooth them, it takes the clear glass and gives it a beautiful opacity that is only apparent when it is dried out of the water.  In time, you have these beautiful ornamental treasures.  Since the glass is manmade, they are few and far between.  Some of the best glass hunting days are the really, really rough days.  For some reason the pounding relentless surf brings the glass up to the surface of the rocks on shore.  It is absolutely fascinating that something so ordinary can become something so beautiful.  But it is hard to spot, the white pieces are translucent in the water…you can easily miss them if you aren’t used to what you are looking for.  They get lost in the rocks.  The pretty green and blue ones are a little easier to spot because the color tends to stick out.

I have heard many times that grief is referred to as waves.  Some even joke about needing scuba gear to catch a breath.   It really is a fitting reference.

I have always loved the beach glass from the time I was a little girl, but now, it just represents so much more to me.  It shows me that once something is shattered, even into a million little pieces that it is not shattered forever.  There is hope for a new day.  Something can be built, it can have reference to the original, but it can be completely different and beautiful all on its own.  It is in the roaring surf that we can become molded into something that is far more beautiful that what we started with.  That the forces of God can take something broken and through the course of life, mold it into a rare and beautiful treasure--if we let it.  We have to be willing to endure the trials of life and give them up to be able to see the beauty that the trials bring to our souls. 

The other positive thing that we have is that once our life is shattered into a million pieces, we GET TO CHOOSE which pieces to pick up and take with us.  We get to decide that there are some things, some people, some situations that are  far better left in the past as a distant memory.  And we are given the opportunity to have a clean slate so to speak…to be able to look at life from a different lens and build something with the benefit of knowing what we know.   Yes, I know that may sound a little crazy to some of you, and trust me it has taken me a long time to be able to think this way, but yes we get to choose what we do. 

I think, this is what I really hope for.  That everything is not for naught.  That there is purpose in the endurance of tragedies presented to us.  That at the end of the day, I can look back and see the changes and see the beauty in spite of picking up the pieces of a shattered life.