Finding Sea Glass

My mother-in-law recently discovered a hobby she thoroughly enjoys: finding and collecting sea glass. She takes short or, sometimes, long walks down the beach, scanning the sand for these little treasures that are hidden amongst all the shells, rocks, and other things you typically find on a beach. Sea glass is regular broken glass that has been weathered by the ocean to form smooth edges and a frosted look. Of course, different colors of sea glass can be found, depending on the color of the original bottle, tableware, or even glass from a shipwreck. I found out this past weekend that green sea glass is rarer than other colors, or at least it is at this particular beach. To be honest, I found myself not so interested in this hobby of hers. Do not get me wrong, I was happy to see her enjoying it the way she does. It just did not seem like something I would be interested in. However, that changed a bit this past weekend when I was walking towards the water to cool off.

We can make anything stressful.

Typically, when at the beach, I like to sit, talk, read, or listen to music. I walk down the beach, some, as well. It is very hard for me to slow down and enjoy time like this. I find myself wanting to be busy with something…searching for something to accomplish. It may be “reading so many pages of this book”, or “listening to a certain podcast”, or “having a certain conversation about something”. As relaxing as any of these things can be, I can find a way to make it stressful.

Strenuous self-effort wears us out and often gets us no where.

On this particular day, as I walked towards the water, something shiny and green caught my attention. It was directly in my line of sight, in the path that I was walking. I bent down and picked up a pretty piece of green sea glass. For whatever reason, this spurred my interest in finding more. So, I was off down the beach, scanning everywhere for another piece, but I could not find one. I decided to give up and turn back. Not many steps later, there was another piece, white this time, directly in my path. The thing was right there. I could not have missed it. It was like my eyes found it without all the effort I was putting into it before.

We often find the treasure we are looking for when we quit looking so hard for it.

This went on several more times. I would dig down, scanning the ground like a madman, critically sorting through all of the debris on the beach with my eyes, not wanting to miss one thing. Only when I would let down my guard and allow myself to enjoy the walk while casually remaining aware of what was right in front of me would I find shards of sea glass. I think I wound up finding five, and all five were found in this way. Not one piece of this treasure was found through anxious, borderline obsessive-compulsive behavior (OCD).

Slowing down and chilling out often requires us to face our fears.

God really spoke to me clearly through this experience. He knows how I am. I find something I want, and I go after it like a crazy person. I often fail to wait for his lead. I also miss important things I would enjoy that are right in front of me because my eyes are darting all over the place, looking for the very thing I am stepping right over. But it is scary to slow down, to move forward instead of retracing my steps looking for things I may have missed, and to trust that what’s right in front of me is enough. This fear drives the anxiety, the busyness, the OCD-like behavior, and the thought that I will be missing something if I am not in a constant state of alertness and busyness. I often do it with my job, my hobbies, and my relationships (as a father, husband, or friend). But I cannot get around this without dealing with the fears. The list of possible suspects goes on and on: fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of looking stupid, fear of being a disappointment, fear of hurting someone, fear of being a bad parent, etc.

The true treasures in life are found and experienced through Faith.

There is no fear in love. When I trust (have faith in) God’s love for me in Christ, fear is immediately dissolved. In His love for me, He meets my needs. Trusting Him to provide what I need, on the path that I am currently on, is hard. I am tempted to look elsewhere for the treasures I seek, and when I succumb to those temptations, I miss the experience of treasures He has laid out in front of me like a piece of sea glass on the beach. Who would have thought you would find sea glass by Faith? Well, maybe that’s a stretch, but in the bigger picture of life, those pieces of “sea glass” are right there for us as we take steps of faith along the way. God has blessed us, is blessing us, and will bless us in ways that we cannot fully grasp. I do not make it happen, which would be ridiculous because 99% of the time I do not even know what I truly need. But He does, and He does not withhold anything from me, even when I do not understand it at the time. For example, who would have thought I would have gotten so much from a piece of sea glass that I had absolutely no interest in before this past weekend?