"Even the Broken Ones are Beautiful"

     So if you know me well, I have a slight, obsession with shells. While visiting the Bahamas a few weeks ago, my youngest and I were walking  down a beach looking for shells. We have quite a few and I told her, as she was looking, try to only pick up ones that aren't broken. She stopped and looked at me puzzled and said,
 "But Mom, even the broken ones are beautiful, God made all the shells. Just cause they're broken doesn't mean we shouldn't value them"
And BAM! There it was.... the Lord in His goodness downloaded a message as He often does as I go about my day to day events. These words were like a bolt of lightening that hit me right between the eyes. 
Shells, ones we collect, are tossed and turned in the ocean.  Each shell is unique with not one being identical to another.   Can you imagine the storms, the waves, and things they've been thrown through to get to a point where we pick them up on the beach? It's unusual to find a whole shell without blemish or  some kind of brokenness, yet we place value on the whole shell? 
     As people, we all contain broken places. We've been tossed and turned by the waves of circumstances. Some not our doing, and some from our own choices. Our broken places may exist, and why we need Jesus.... our only hope of being whole again as he fills our broken places. We need to love others in this way too.....be Jesus with skin on so that others can know His love and have Him fill their broken places as well. I am so thankful that God loved me enough to send people into my life who love me right where I am, and where I have been and all the waves that have crashed over me in life.  Me, with all my jagged edges, rough parts and imperfections, yet they still love me with the love of Christ, and more importantly, He loves me despite it all.  I'm thankful that God can use those broken places that I have been tossed and turned, chipped and scarred, and fill them with love and compassion for others dealing with their own broken places and remind them of their value and show them Christ's love, just as He has done for me.   
1 Samuel 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, " Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.  For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."