Sea glass

I love sea glass (also called beach glass). I have been lucky enough to find a few pieces and have been given some pieces as well. I love the way the pieces are smooth and opaque, no longer as clear as the glass was before being tossed in the ocean for a few years.

This morning, at one of my salt water spots, I found several pieces of what I call future sea glass. They have been tumbled in the water long enough that the edges are no longer jagged and sharp enough to cut, but they need longer before they will be transformed into true sea glass.

I have been working through some hurts from my past recently, and I realized while looking at the pieces I had picked up that past pain is like sea glass. At first, after only a while, it is just healed enough that it can't hurt us again. But later, if we allow our past to be truly past (that is, if we let it go - into the endless ocean of God's care and forgiveness) it can be transformed into an item of great beauty. How does past pain become present beauty? When we allow it to change who we are for the better, by learning from it, by becoming stronger, and eventually by using it to help us love and reach out to others who are experiencing similar hurts.

My "future sea glass" needs some more time in the ocean, so it can have a little longer to be truly transformed. And some of my past hurts need more time, too, before I will be truly transformed. But it's okay to be a work in progress.

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places.
- Ernest Hemingway