Clay balls

[Guest guest]

Clay balls

 

A man was exploring caves by the Seashore. In one of the caves he

found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like

someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake.

They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the

bag out of the cave with him

 

As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a

time out into the ocean as far as he could. He thought little about

it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a

rock ... Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!

Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each

contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of

jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left .

Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had

thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure

into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he

could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it

away !

It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even

ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like

much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we

discount it. We see that person as less important than someone more

beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken

the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person .

There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time

to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person

the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the

brilliant gem begins to shine forth.

May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have

thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in

bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them .

I am so blessed by the gems of friendships that I have .. Thank you

for looking beyond my clay vessel.

2:47 PM 5/26/2009