Many people enjoy scouring the beach for seashells. What a prize it is to find a new one freshly washed up from the depths when its former occupant needs it no longer. I’ve got a modest collection of these amazing creations and each one clearly illustrates God’s infinite creativity even in providing for creatures deep in the oceans that are rarely seen by humans.
Beaches, however, are also cluttered with many broken shells. There are far more of these than complete ones since some are cracked in half, others are missing an end, and still others are only fragments. Except for very rare specimens, most collectors aren’t interested in the broken ones, only the “good” ones.
And yet, each of these broken shells has its own story. A story about where it lived, how long it housed a resident, and what others lived around it. How did it get broken and how long ago did it happen? The questions go on and on.
So too, each of us has a story that includes how we have been broken for we all are in some way or the other. Sometimes we’ve been cracked by other people but most of our damages are self-inflicted.
As sinful human beings born in Adam’s line, some of us are broken with an addiction to drugs or alcohol. Others are broken sexually by adultery, promiscuity, or pornography. Many times those who appear to be “perfect specimens” are horribly damaged by guilt, greed, or pride. Still others are shattered by worry, cowardice, or bitterness.
We can scour the cities and country-sides the world over searching for a perfect representative of the human race; one who is not broken in some way, and we will come up short. Until we find Jesus. He is the only One who is unflawed, unmarred, and unbroken.
As we bring to Him our brokenness and all our damaged pieces, He is able to reconstruct something beautiful of our lives. He can fill in the holes where parts are missing and recreate a life of beauty, purpose, and use.
As He does His work of renewal, He listens to our stories and heals our hurts. He invites us to confide in Him and to trust Him with our deepest secrets.
But even after He heals us, we must remember where we’ve come from. We must not forget what we were like when we came to Him. We must also recall how we got broken, for those sinful tendencies remain. Where others have hurt us, we do well to establish wise boundaries to prevent future pain especially if those individuals are still in the breaking business.
Although Jesus was and is the only perfect human being, He too knows what it’s like to be broken. Throughout His ministry, His reputation was attacked, His motives were maligned, and ultimately His body was destroyed and broken by fists, nails, and staffs.
And yet His spirit and soul remained whole as He blessed those who hurt Him and even prayed for those who nailed Him to His instrument of execution. Amazingly, even though His body was cruelly broken, like a geode, His inner beauty then became even more apparent. After His resurrection, He was lovelier than before and remains so today.
My prayer is that those of us who have been saved and reconstructed by Him will worship and glorify Him for His work of skill, compassion, love, and grace. I also pray that we will cherish and value all those around us who have likewise been broken or still are, including those who have been healed, those who are in that process, and those who are still lying in pieces on the beach.
The next time we go shell hunting, may those broken ones remind us of who we were and are, and may we cherish the most perfect One of all. Blessings, George