Lessons I learn from my children on vacation #1

As we have walked the beach this week, Peyton has been obsessed with finding seashells. We have had a blast hunting. But I have discovered that when she checks the shells to see if they are "keeper" quality, it is a little different than when I check the shells.
I look and look to find the biggest possible shell, finally when I can't find that huge shell (that everyone is always looking for and NEVER finds) I settle for looking for one a little smaller. But I will not settle on anything less than perfection. It must be perfectly formed. No chips or scratches. Perfectly colored. Nothing dingy or faded. Perfectly smooth or Perfectly rippled. Must be completely perfect or I throw it as hard as I can back into the ocean.
But Peyton. Now she has a different technique. She sits down in the water with all the shells.Runs her hands through the sand and the water and then picks up what ever she finds. If it is a shell......then it's a keeper. They ALL go in her bucket. I try to convince her that those shells aren't perfect and how we should only look for the ones that are. But she quickly educates me. She says, "Mom, they are all shells. And didn't we come down to the beach to look for shells?" I hang my head and sit down in the water with her and begin to look for shells.......her way :-)

The Lesson:

We the church (little c) love looking for shells. We love the idea of adding to our collection. But the truth is we only want the perfect shells. Because somewhere in our world we have become convinced that it is only the perfect shells that will add true beauty to our church. People whos lives haven't been cracked, or broken, people who are the perfect color, or fit into the mold of beautiful. We have come to believe that the broken imperfect shells will take away or distract from the overall picture of the church.
Pretty sad huh?

To change our thinking would mean that we must change the way we view people. See them for the beauty they add instead of what they could take away. We would have to focus on keeping the broken and scratched ones instead of tossing them back out into the world. We would have to stop looking at our own preferences of getting things done and start focusing on "whatever it takes to reach them". Just like how Peyton sat down in the water with all the broken shells. It was there that she found the shells that she would take home. Standing up and looking down trying to find shells will cause you to miss the beauifully broken ones.


~LL