Broken Shells

Just got back from a vacation to Myrtle Beach, SC. What a fantastic time of rest and renewal! As we sat in the sand and enjoyed the days, my children worked hard on building sand castles and shell collections. Joining them for shell collecting was an exercise in patience and open-mindedness. Whereas I was careful in selecting shells with peculiar colors and near-perfect shapes, they were engaged in grabbing just about anything that popped out to them. Many were odd shapes and sizes. Some were not even shells but rocks or pieces of garbage worn down by the waves for who knows how long.
It was an extraordinary exercise of my will not to reject what they found, resisting the urge to change their minds about the treasures they found. I wonder how many times we are the same way in the Church. We have an idea as to what kinds of people we welcome as members or help with benevolence. And then God sends us one that doesn't match our profile... one that seems not worthy of our collection. Those are the times when we need to have God's prophets among us celebrating and encouraging the entire church to enter into the celebration. Like the older son in the story of the prodigal son (the one who stayed home faithfully and did not waste away his inheritance in wild living), we need to be encouraged to enter into the celebration for one that was lost is now found. And this one is not just a child of God but also a brother or sister of ours!
And the other thing we should all remember about shells on the seashore as well as people in the pew... we are all broken. What we call "whole shells" are really just broken shells with neat edges, split apart in ways that we recognize. We are all broken shells. Thanks be to God that Christ walks the shorelines and sees the beauty in all of us.