I’m at the beach this week. I am always amazed by God’s beauty that surrounds me, the waves crashing in, the sound of sea gulls, and the salty air. I’m relaxed. I usually bring home sea shells. I appreciate the ones that are whole still intact, but I love the broken pieces, the parts of shells. The colors poking through, the cracks, being discarded by most, I love picking up pieces of a shell and wondering what the whole shell looked like. Knowing somewhere maybe in the deep of the ocean the rest of the shell is there or it might be on the beach, but the ocean has broken the shell into what I can see and hold. The pieces are more beautiful to me than an intact shell. Maybe I can relate. I am far from intact, life has broken me down, but there is still beauty in my brokenness.

I wonder if sometimes marriages are like the sea shells. We are always in search of an intact spouse and when we see a crack we want to throw the marriage back and find one that isn’t broken. I can’t say how many times I have heard and spoken of the brokenness instead of looking at the beauty in the broken.

I am so thankful that I serve a heavenly father who sees me and all of the brokenness and looks in wonder at the beauty. I want to see others like that.

Prayer for today: Please Lord let me see the beauty around me accepting others cracks and all.