Multitude Mondays: How to Make a Moment Shimmer
We sauntered barefoot along the ocean’s edge, our eyes fixed on the treasure that had washed up with the morning tide.
The shell-covered beach was a flea market of wonder for anyone willing to stoop low and sift through the sandy jumble.
I was drawn to the ones that reflected the evening sky, abandoned husks of sea life that glistened pink and gold.
But Hannah was intrigued with them all. She studied their shapes and sizes, fingered their texture and form.
She grabbed the black ones with shattered edges, the white ones bland and battered.
She chose the flawed ones imprinted with ruts of erosion like cryptic chirography scribbled across their bumpy fronts, and delighted in the tiny ones, no bigger than raindrops.
My daughter’s small plastic bucket, meant to encourage prudent selection, overflowed long before mine even jingled with the clank of carapaces.
As she excavated a grungy shell from the shore’s fringe, I questioned Hannah’s sagacity. Gently reminded her to choose her treasure carefully because at the week’s end we could bring home only a jarful of favorites.
She nodded agreeably and scraped the shell’s grime with her fingernail, uncovering a bland gray surface.
“You can find something better than that,” I encouraged as I opened my palm and proffered the shiny pink beauty I’d just plucked from the sand beneath my feet.
Hannah shrugged and then dunked her unexceptional find into the cold blue water. She rinsed it gingerly; rubbed away another layer of filth and then polished it with the corner of her damp t-shirt. Finally, she turned the shell over in her hand and angled it toward the sun.
When its gray surface caught the light, the shell cast a silver sheen, translucent like butterfly wings and shimmery like stars at dusk. We both gasped. And Hannah turned it once again in the light as we marveled.My daughter slipped the shell into her pocket and sighed, “I knew this one was beautiful.”
We’ve traded the ocean for cornfields and the sandy shoreline for soft green grass, but a splattering of seashells still dot our landlocked world.
Some favorites are scattered in a happy jumble across the girls’ nightstand, while others are arranged on the boys’ dresser in a tidy row. A few have been transferred to the sandbox where they decorate castles and fill the trenches left by Joshua’s miniature bulldozers.
But one rather unexceptional looking gray shell sits right beneath my kitchen window.
A gift from an eight-year-old girl who has an eye for beauty.
And a daily reminder that even the most ordinary of moments can shimmer when they’re held up to the light of the Son.
The Overflow: For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see. -Psalm 36:9
*Still counting the ordinary gifts He gives with extraordinary grace. Won’t you join me?
918. The creak of the swing set making music with the melody of the girls’ laughter919. The smell of spring rain and muddy earth
920. My littlest one jumping in puddles on the driveway- in her pink pajamas and frog green rain boots.
921. Josh “plowing” the yard with a slab of wood and his gator.
922. Admiring the sunset with my man. Orange melting into pink. My hands melting into his.
923. The first mow of the year: Josh in his John Deere cap sitting next to big brother on the lawn tractor.
924. Burning calves from as I bike the hill to home.
925. Blue polka-dot boots covered with mud, proof of the afternoon’s frog hunt in the pond.
Linking with these beautiful grace seekers today…ann for 1000 gifts, l.l. for on, in, and around mondays, laura for playdates with god and jen for soli deo gloria
Linking with these beautiful grace seekers today…ann for 1000 gifts, l.l. for on, in, and around mondays, laura for playdates with god and jen for soli deo gloria
Hannah has a heart of Gold! I think she is going to be just like you! She is just pure amazing…just like the other 4 siblings! 🙂
This is a great post! AGAIN!!!!
Oh the ocean … my favorite place to be washed in abundant love and little giggles.
Splashing around in God’s goodness today … Had to stop by and wade in this glorious place. Hope you don’t mind if I stay a bit and let joy soak deep down.
Splashin’
Sarah
http://justsarahdawn.blogspot.com/
Your Hannah is a girl after my own heart. I can look for shells for hours. Thank you for taking me to one of my sweet places tonight, Alicia!
Jen- I’d love to get our girls together on the beach.. that means their moms could spend the day chatting in the sand 🙂
And Pamela, I agree with you.. I want to be that translucent gem, too… letting Christ shine through me and turning this ordinary woman into something beautiful. Sometimes I wish we could see OURSELVES through His eyes!
This took my breath away…I want to show the beautiful when held up to the SON. I don’t see it, I wallow in the “I wish I” never thinking that I may look different–and others, too–when I’m held up to the Son.
Aww Alicia, your daughter is such a gem! God has blessed her with eyes that see beauty shining in ordinary things! Just like how a great God sees beauty in ordinary people. Wonderful, heartwarming story! God bless! 🙂
even the most ordinary can shimmer. oh, yes. what sweet words. And I have a Hannah, too. I bet our girls could spend hours on the beach together, looking for beauty.
oh, that we would see beauty through a child’s eye…for there is heaven there. True and pure. Lovely!
What a wonderful way of seeing beauty your daughter is blessed with. Such a special gift!! Pink pjs and frog green rain boots… lol… love it! Our green mower needs to come out this week too! 🙂
neighbors today @ wellspring…great post…on the hunt…beauty all around…i love how your daughter has His eyes to see…blessings to you~
I do love that He uses His littlest ones to teach His “big kids” so often. So glad you all stopped by today, friends. Wishing you a few shining ordinary but extraordinary moments today!
What a beautiful post, Alicia. Such a wonderful reminder that what may look ordinary (or less-than-ordinary) and dull on the exterior may contain God’s infinite beauty on the interior (or once the dirt and grime is removed). Such wisdom in your daughter’s response.
I love this story, Alicia! I totally get your daughter’s desire to find a treasure where you least expect it. And I’m definitely with you on how God’s light brings beauty to our lives in ways we never would’ve dreamed or expected!
“my hands melting into his” so precious. moments to treasure indeed! blessings to you from Uganda