Today was a lovely, sunny yet brisk and breezy sort of fall day and I decided to open the windows when I got home from work, figuring this might be one of the last days I'd get to air out the apartment. I enjoyed the breeze at the kitchen window while I washed the dishes, but as the evening wore on, it started to get a little chilly in the apartment and so I went to fight with the always sticky kitchen window. In my struggle to get it closed, my elbow bumped the sand dollar that has been living on the windowsill for the last 3 years, and the edge of the sand dollar slipped under the window right as it came crashing down.
I was immediately very, very sad. I picked up that sand dollar on the beach in North Corolla down in the Outer Banks just over 3 years ago, during the first week of October 2008. I, my boyfriend at the time, and my college roommates and their significant others took a week long trip to OBX. It was a glorious week - just warm enough to sit on the beach in out swimsuits and get a tan without scorching, and the water still plenty warm from an entire summer's worth of sunshine. We saw the wild horses, sang karaoke, ate seafood, went running and walking on the beach, played games, cooked for one another, and I thought Aaron and I would be married. It was a fabulous week in the middle of a wonderful year at a very special time in my life. It was one of those times that you look back on and think how perfect it was, how unified you all were, how fun and easy your life was (even though you know not all of it - maybe none of it - is or was necessarily true). Basically, I loved looking at that sand dollar. When I washed dishes. When I got a drink of water. When I filled pots to make dinner. When I folded laundry in the kitchen. Many, many memories from a wonderful week in the middle of a wonderful time in my life were all tied up in that little white sand dollar.
But, when I picked up the one larger piece that remained intact, the little pieces from inside came tumbling out into my palm and what a surprise I found! I had completely forgotten about the birds that live inside of sand dollars. Did you know about the birds? Five little tiny white birds live inside each and every sand dollar. I don't know what they are, or what their purpose is. Because sand dollars are living creatures in the ocean, I imagine that the birds inside are part of their bodies. Regardless, I forgot that I knew about the birds when I was a little girl, and when those little pieces came out in my hand, it was as if I was magically transported back to being a little girl, cracking open a sand dollar for the first time.
So, I started wondering - are there other things that I knew as a child and I have forgotten since becoming an adult?
Then a friend reminded me that we often find hidden beauty when precious things are broken. I couldn't stop thinking about her point, and how true it was. This is how I feel about my faith in God and Jesus Christ. My faith is a beautiful, wonderful, immeasurably valuable thing which I only found after I was broken. And because I'm human, I value myself. I value my safety, my comfort, my health, my own opinions, my own idea, my own way of doing things. When all of those things were broken, it was painful, and it was sad, and something very, very beautiful emerged from the center of all of it.
So, what do you think? Have you stumbled upon things you forgot you once knew as a child, only to be wonderfully surprised when you rediscover them as an adult? And what kinds of beauty have you discovered when something important to you has been broken?
