Sea Glass

"As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last He will take His stand on the earth."

"He breaks in pieces mighty men without inquiry,"

Here's a tid-bit from my Streams in the Desert devotional this morning:

"A shattered and broken personality releases fragrance of Christ. Jacob was broken at Peniel when he wrestled with God. Mary was broken at Bethany when Lazarus was taken from her.

Why must it be a broken personality? Is it not wholeness of character that we have always heard about that gives off the perfume of holiness? The word wholeness is connected with holiness and health - spiritual health. We know that wholeness without God means danger and finally failure.

Charles Fox knew what it was to be broken. He wrote during a time of mending,

Dark waters blossom white in breaking,
High souls are made in the unmaking.

The dark waters in breaking have united with the unseen oxygen; that is why they can reflect the glory of the light."


As you know I am an ocean girl. I love the smell of it and above all I love the sound of crashing waves. When I was going to Bible School down in Cannon Beach, OR, it was the one thing that put me to sleep. While there I learned about living with the danger of Tsunamis. Every few days the city would test their sound system. Normally, it would be a loud drawn out siren but on testing days it was a cow mooing sound. And yes, we wise and mature Bible students would ALWAYS laugh EVERY time. Anyway, we were taught that if we heard that sound that we had to run to higher ground.

So here we have waves that lull me to sleep but that can also cause mass destruction. Waves on the surface of the ocean are called surface waves and only occur in the upper layer of the ocean usually resulting from wind. Wind speed, distance of the open water that the wind has blown over and the time it's blown over a given area all determine the size and shape of the wave. The greater each of these variables, the larger the waves. Breaking waves are waves whose base can no longer support it's top which causes it to collapse. It does this when it runs into shallow water, or when two wave systems oppose and combine forces.

Sometimes God causes waves to come into our lives. Sometimes they are small ripples that die as soon as the wind stops blowing. Other times He causes them to be breaking waves as He allows many different things to come colliding into our lives. Here we are tumbled to and fro and bit by bit we're broken. I think of sea glass. It's surface use to be slick and smooth and it's edges sharp. But when it gets tossed and scraped against the sand at the bottom of the ocean it is rubbed smooth. The edges become rounded and the texture changes and is marred. You can no longer see through it because it's scratched up. Yet, many people find these pieces valuable and beautiful and spend hours walking the beach collecting them.

We are like that sea glass. God has taken our too slick surfaces and sharp unloving edges and has tossed us within the waves. We are tumbled up and down gaining oxygen at the top as well as being roughed up by the sand below. It hurts as He transforms us. But then one day we ride that one last wave that brings us at last to the sea shore. Then God picks us up as His treasure. He knows you have been through some difficult times and because of it you are His transformed treasure that He places in His special collection. Here He will never loose you but cherish you. It's like that "Footprints" poem. There's only one set of footprints on the sand because you are in His arms being carried.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away, behold, new things have come."

We are daily being changed into Christ's image. Our old life is being stripped away by the tossing of the waves and a new life is being formed.

Krista Jones
5.6.08

Bible Reading Guide:

Beginning to End: Exodus 36-38
Old and New Testaments Together: Exodus 23-24 & Matthew 20:1-16
Historical: Exodus 36-38
Chronological: Exodus 1-3
Blended: Isaiah 23-25 & Mark 6:1-29

The Bible reading guides will be taken from Back to the Bible