Once the homes for a myriad of creatures
broken shells line the sand
They have been pounded in the waves
crushed by the powers of time and water and movement
Only to find a temporary home on the shoreline of sand

The shoreline of sand that
has been created by the shells that have been there before them
which were also once the homes for a myriad of creatures
and are now the soft landing place for barefeet of passersby
because they were crushed, broken, and pounded all the more

A note on brokenness…sometimes in human form, we, like the shells, are smoothed and refined by brokenness. The very things that are the most intensely difficult things in our lives, can be the things which enable us to see with compassion and understand others on levels that we never would have been able to had we not endured the relentless ‘pounding’ of life’s circumstance. Would that we would allow any ‘brokenness’ in our lives to be a soft landing place for those vulnerable souls who walk into our lives…like soft sand under the feet as opposed to the jagged sharp edges of unpolished shells.

As in the beauty of God’s design for shells, nothing is wasted. The shells protect the creatures, then become the sand the creatures will walk on. The cycle continues and works. In our lives, the brokenness need never be wasted either. The recognition of brokenness allows for the longing for wholeness and the understanding of brokenness in others. Love that.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

Photo Credit: Austin Halbert

(This post was previously shared as a Weekly Photo Challenge with the theme of “Broken”)

Travel theme: Broken