Beauty in the Broken

When Maria was about 3, we took her for her very first visit to the beach. The day we arrived, a big storm had just gone through, and we decided to walk the beach to look for shells. There were so many shells that washed up on the shore because of the storm and many were broken. 

Of course, as I always did, I started looking for the perfect shells- the ones shaped perfectly and obviously weren’t broken.

I noticed Maria kept picking up the broken shells. As she picked up the shells, I tried to explain that we would only keep the unbroken ones, but she persisted and enjoyed picking up the broken shells. Not only did she pick up the broken ones, but she also looked at them like they were the most beautiful things she had ever seen. She looked at them with such joy and saw the beauty in each one. Infact, the only ones she picked up were the broken ones and she was having so much fun doing it. Before long, I began seeing the shells through her eyes.

I started looking for the beauty in the broken. I started looking for flawed, beautiful, broken shells. By the end of our walk, we had a cup full of beautiful, imperfect, broken shells.

I began thinking about how God finds the beauty in the broken. We all have life experiences that have caused us to be forever changed. We are like the broken shells. The shell can never look the same, but that doesn’t make it any less beautiful.  Isn’t it great God sees the beauty in the broken? In fact, He is the only one who can take our brokenness and bring out the beautiful.

Divorce, sickness, grief…whatever brokenness you’ve experienced…God sees beauty in you. He can use the broken shell more than he can the perfect ones.

 God sees the beauty in the broken.