Many beach goers love to comb the beach for sea shells, sand dollars, and driftwood. A less common “hidden treasure” found on many beaches is sea glass. Also known as beach glass, these pieces of glass were once useful glass bottles or vessels that were either thrown in the ocean or dropped on a beach and carried away by the tide. After months or years of being tossed around in the ocean these broken pieces of glass eventually wash up on shore. The result is a beautiful piece of glass with the jagged edges smoothed by the waves and current. These unusually shaped colorful pieces of glass can be used to make jewelry, stepping stones, glass candles, placed in counter tops, and used as art in just about anything imaginable.
There may be times in your life that you feel like a discarded vessel, tossed aside, broken, with all hope gone. The cause may be drugs, alcohol, the loss of a job, a series of poor decisions, a broken relationship, divorce, or the death of a loved one. The world seems to be crashing in all around you, rendering you weak and seemingly useless. You feel forgotten, shamed, rejected, and tossed aside. But hold on, Jesus is a master craftsman at taking the broken pieces of any life, reshaping it, and making it useful again. He can heal or reshape a broken body. He can take any shattered relationship, any broken promise, any shattered dream, and make it beautiful and useful for His service. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He hath made everything beautiful in his time…”
The Gaithers put the following words together in a song that perfectly illustrates God’s work in our lives during times of brokenness.
“Heartaches, broken pieces
Ruined lives are why You died on Calvary
Your touch is what I longed for
You have given life to me
I will serve Thee because I love Thee
You have given life to me
I was nothing before You found me
You have given life to me.”
Whatever difficulty you are facing today, whatever scars your past may show, whatever heartaches or failures that haunt you, give every broken piece to Him in total surrender. He is the master of making “beauty out of brokenness.”
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”
Romans 8:38-39