SHELLING LIFE LESSONS

Broken Beach Shells--Wrightsville Beach, NC

Here's some of the "life lessons learned" from a sunrise shelling walk on the beach during an Easter break weekend:

* Rising at daybreak assures the best shelling and also the best seat in the house for greeting the gift of another day of God’s creation.
* Braving the cold and wind chill of an early spring day gets a leg up on the competition which has rolled over in bed and pulled up the covers.
* The very best shelling occurs at sunrise after a storm has passed through on the previous day and night. Christian believers have the promise of finding eternal life after braving life’s storms.
* When faced with the daunting choices of the many shells deposited by the pounding waves, the first inclination is to go for the “perfect” ones and disregard those that are “broken and disfigured”.
* Close examination reveals that even the “perfect” shells that you have gathered are still somewhat imperfect in shape and color, but each one is still truly unique and beautiful in its own right.
* Once you have tired of collecting the “perfect” shells at your feet, you begin to notice the uniqueness and hidden beauty of the scattered and broken shells left behind by the bearer of the foot prints walking somewhere ahead of you.
* The broken and unusual shells begin to take on an aura of their own and that’s when you transition to a search for the most unique and interesting “one of a kind” shells. These creations have the physical changes acquired from time and experience and have been tossed and turned by the crashing waves, sand and storms.
* Jesus recognized that we all live in a broken world— broken lives, broken dreams, broken homes, broken relationships. During the last supper he broke bread and instructed us to eat it as symbolic of his body “broken for you” and drink the wine as symbolic of his blood, “shed for you”. He sacrificed his life so that we will have eternal life. He taught us to help and comfort those spirits and bodies that have been broken by life’s crashing waves and storms and recognize the beauty that resides in all of us.

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
A righteous man may have many troubles,
but the Lord delivers him from them all;
he protects all his bones,
not one of them will be broken.
--Psalm 34:18-20

David is not only praying to God to be with him during one of life's storms, but also delivered a prophetic sign that Jesus' bones would not be broken during his crucifixion. The Roman custom was to break the legs of the crucified to hasen death.