“I will go before you and make the rough places smooth.” Isaiah 45:2
Jon asked me the other day why I enjoyed looking for sea glass along the rocky coast of Montecito, California or in Rockport, Massachusetts. I tell him it is like looking for hidden treasure.
I can get lost in it for hours, (just ask Jon), searching and collecting. I crawl in rocky caves, move large rocks, look between boulders and dig under the sand. It is exciting, as you never know what you are going to find… the stem of a wine glass, a rare blue piece, a marble, the bottom of a beer bottle or just lots and lots of white, green and brown pieces.
Sea glass starts as bottles and other glass items… junk, trash. It also comes from tragedies like shipwrecks. The glass is tossed on the shore, broken and then tumbled smooth by the waves and currents of the sea. It can take up to 10 years in a constant ocean environment for broken glass to become sea glass. A perfect piece of sea glass has no shiny spots, is well frosted and has smooth edges, edges all beautifully softened, smoothed and worn by the continuous tossing of the ocean's waves against the harshness of the rocks and sand.
It takes years for the jagged, junk glass to become beautiful and cloudy. It is not a one-time toss or an instantaneous event. The ocean takes the garbage thrown into it by humans and turns it into something beautiful and worthy.
And isn’t that what God’s love does to us? As we are tossed by the storms of life, His loving presence with us softens our hearts, smoothes away our jagged edges, and makes us beautiful in His sight. God turns our junk and our tragedy into beauty. And as we age our cloudiness becomes even more beautiful.
This is why I love looking for sea glass.
Grace & Peace,
Brenda Golden
January 29, 2016