The view from my room.....

A quiet day so far. I slept until 9:30 and joined the others for breakfast at 10…a late start today but that’s good when you’re changing time zones! The others joined John for morning Bible study and his testimony and I blogged. After lunch the others went to Castlewellan to perhaps walk the hedge maze and the Annsley Gardens. I opted to stay back and walk down to the sea alone.

It was drizzling rain but a comfortable 48; nice enough for a walk! Along the path, the gorse were in full bloom. Richie says it's a weed with thorns and it's all alongside the highways. It really is rather lovely. 

 When I got to the shore, signs were posted from the nearby base saying that parts of the beach are a firing range today. I didn’t go far beyond the signage!

As I walked and let the tears flow, I picked up shells…don’t we always do that at the sea…and was of course, looking for unbroken ones.  After a few were collected and pocketed, I wondered to myself why I wanted unbroken shells when I am so broken and crushed. I started taking photos of the broken ones and listening as I crushed more shells with each step. How very poignant the sound was. The roar of the sea beyond and the muted “crush, crush, crush” of each step beneath.  It was the awesome power of God against the weakness of the tiny shells.

I finally picked up one broken shell to add to my unbroken ones. I continued to think about brokenness as I walked. The broken shells become crushed shells and eventually more like sand. And it is the sand that smooths the rocks as they crash into the shore. It is out of brokenness that the roughness can be smoothed out. And sometimes it is out of brokenness that we become more useful to the Kingdom.

And then I considered those unbroken shells……they are only half of what they once were. The life is gone from them. The half I see seems to be unbroken but the half that is gone may have been smashed and crushed into tiny fragments. So it is with each of us. Perhaps people see the half that appears unbroken but the half they do not see is crushed beyond repair.  And when I see others; I do not know what their other half may be. Perhaps each of us is crushed in some way, seemingly beyond repair. But I do know this. Jesus wants me in all my brokenness and He alone can make me whole. I may not be repaired but I can be restored to wholeness, maybe not today but in His time.  And not to the wholeness I once knew but to the wholeness He has for me.

When I returned to the manor, I washed my few shells and found that the broken one had not survived well in my pocket, more was broken off while the unbroken ones remained whole. And isn’t that how it is? When we are broken, every jostle seems to fracture us a bit more. That is why grief is so difficult to pass through….even seemingly gentle things like a “ride in a warm fleece lined pocket” can bring more brokenness.