Broken Shells 

Yesterday I was hunting for shells on the beach with my six year old daughter Maeve.  It is one of her favorite beach hobbies and in San Diego we often get really low tides that make the search all the more fun. 

While we were walking the beach together she would run ahead of me, dig out a shell, and run back to ask “Is this a good one?”  Most of the time I would put it in my pocket, but on one occasion, I said, “Nah, it’s broken, we only want the whole ones” and threw it back onto the sand.   

Maeve’s response caught me off guard.  She ran over, picked up the broken piece of clam shell, and said “But it’s still beautiful to me.” 

When we got back to our chairs she showed me a bucket of all of the shells she had found while I was out surfing – more than half of them were broken fragments of shells that at one time had been whole.  Most of us would walk by them on our search for shells that were perfectly complete, but to her, the broken pieces of those once unbroken shells were worth something. 

As we drove home I began thinking about those broken shells and the eyes of a little girl that thought them special – beautiful – just as they were. 

How do you look at broken shells?   

But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.  Mark 10:14-16 (ESV)