Trash to Treasure

I’m a sucker for sea glass. Really, I am. Regardless of which beach I roam, or how often I go there, I search for sea glass. And even if I know that bit of glass is nothing more than a brown shard from a beer bottle thrown recklessly out of a speeding boat by crazy kids, it’s still precious to me. Brown or green? Bring it on. Yellow? Well, ok. And blue or red? It makes my day, those rare colors that wink in the sun, washing up wet and shiny on the sand.

I started collecting sea glass as a young girl on our yearly pilgrimage to Hampton Beach in New Hampshire. The water was often too cold for swimming, but the beach was always ready for scavenging for just that perfect seashell, or that rarer piece of glass. Sea glass, I later learned, was its proper name. Once home, it was put into a jam jar (it’s what I could easily pilfer) and slowly, over time, I’d add a piece or two to the collection, remembering where I’d picked up the pieces, which beach, or state - and when I got older - which country that perfect piece of glass came from.

Even before I learned of the broader attraction of sea glass to millions of other crazy fools, I realized that the sea glass I collected represented more to me than a mere momento, or a piece of glass stolen from a distant sandy shore. It was more than a broken bit of a beer or wine bottle carelessly discarded, or even more than a precious piece of blue glass from an ancient medicine bottle. Sea glass represented to me so many things: the tug of the ocean on my heart. The glint of sunshine on a warm summer day. The hot sand on my feet, at once too hot to bear but desirable nonetheless for its reminder of summer and sun and sheer contentment. It also spoke of brokenness, glass bits worn smooth with the passage of time, the kaleidoscope of colors whispering of joy and sorrow and confusion and peace. Sea glass winked in memories of precious weeks at that frigid New Hampshire shore while growing up, as well as my honeymoon spent in a hot sunny week on Cape Cod when I was but 19. Sea glass caressed my hands from Hawaii and Aruba and California and the Dominican Republic, imparting the peace and contentment of days spent with the man I love. And there is the sea glass I collected with my young daughters on the shores of Nantucket, and more recently the sea glass collected with grandchildren on the Shoreline in Connecticut, imparting to them the mystery to be found in a small piece of colored glass.

But more than memory, collected sea glass is the symbol of being reshaped, transformed- being made new.  As from trash to treasure. What was once thrown out, discarded and unwanted, broken on the rocks of disappointment, and shattered by storms of loss, is thus transformed by winds and crashing tide into a smooth bit of imperfect, but oh! so treasured sea glass. Sea glass speaks to me of how God takes our sorrows and our pain, our brokenness and sharp edges, and transforms them through the power of His love into beautiful jewels.  Even and especially in the midst of our life’s most difficult storms, He fashions a life that is glorious and filled with love and passion and purpose. A heart once broken is healed and whole. A mind shattered from betrayal and pain is mended to become not only whole, but stronger and more beautiful for its stress and strain. 

Sea glass is also a symbol of legacy.  No matter our sorrows, our brokenness or the pain in our lives, we have something to offer to others, to those we love.  What seems sharp to the point of slicing becomes smooth and gentle in God's loving hands.  We do not get to decide how our pain and sorrow helps others.  We leave it to God that someone will pick up that beautiful, imperfect piece of smooth glass on the wet, sandy shore, and from that will come to know something about Papa's love, and transformational grace.  We simply have to be willing to be found. To be picked up. To be cherished, loved, and set aside.  We have to allow our trash to become treasure.