I found a Seashell
/If you’ve clicked on this post, then you too must be an ocean lover because the title of this blog is not very compelling. But it’s important. It’s really important.
I’ve always had a dream of finding a big seashell washed up on the beach. A big Conch shell to be exact. Beautiful. Pristine. And completely mine. My grandmother had two such big shells in her bathroom. I remember them vividly. I thought they were beautiful. I remember asking her once where she had found them. She smiled and chuckled a little to herself as she explained she had purchased them when she was on a trip overseas. “You’d have to be pretty lucky to find one that big on the beach here in Australia.” She commented.
I was very disappointed. And equally determined. I would scour the beach for hours as a kid, in search of this shell, only to find big fan shells or interesting tiny shells. Beautiful colours and patterns. None of them the Conch shell I deeply desired. This dream stayed with me for many years, always keeping a keen eye out whenever at the beach just in case today would be the day I found the shell of my dreams.
Dreams come true, my friends, they really do.
Yesterday, I was at one of my local beaches, soaking in the sun and enjoying the ocean. It was beautiful. The tide was on its way out and I watched it progressively receded, revealing more and more of what laid beneath its waters. Mostly big fan shells and tonnes of tiny little shells. On the odd occasion there would be a small broken conch shell, but mainly the watery depths of this particular beach only held tiny shells. At one point I rolled over onto my back and propped myself up on my elbows, taking in the view again. Out the corner of my eye, something rolling in the lapping waves caught my attention. I squinted to get a better look. Surely not. Really? Here? Just lying there?
I got up from my towel and made a beeline for the item in the water. I’m not going to lie, I probably would have taken out a small child had I needed to in order to get to it first. Sure enough, there it was. A perfectly formed conch shell the size of my hand!
It wasn’t pretty but I didn’t care. As I picked it up, I was filled with awe and wonder. I had been searching my whole life for this moment and here I was, at 36, experiencing the dream of a 6-year-olds heart. I rinsed the shell off and walked back to my towel, gently placing it down, still not believing what had just happened.
As I sat there on my towel, admiring my new treasure, the Holy Spirit spoke softly.
‘I know all your dreams. Even the ones you think are insignificant.’
I felt really humbled in that moment. I felt really grateful. I felt really seen. I felt really loved.
It’s just a shell, I hear you say. There’s no real value to a shell. But I would disagree.
When I was kid, I fell in love with the Little Mermaid. Partly due to the beautiful love story it is and partly because there was something about her that connected with me. I loved Ariel’s trove of wonders. I loved her gadgets and gizmo of plenty, her jewels and pictures and random candlestick holders with forks in it. I loved that she was curious, like me. That she was a forager, like me. That she was a mermaid, like me. (ok, maybe not exactly like me but I’m certain I was a Mermaid in another life!). Ariel found treasure in the simplest of things. I loved that it wasn’t the value the world ascribed to something that mattered, like a dinglehopper (a fork) or snarfblat (a pipe), it was the value that Ariel ascribed to the item that did.
For Ariel, these trinkets held a dream, a dream to be where the people are. And that made them priceless.
For me, that shell held a dream, a dream to find something I deeply desired.
It also served as a reminder that if God can care this much about a child’s dream to find a big shell on the beach, how much more does he care about my big adult dreams?
That shell not only represents the truth that God cares about all our dreams, but that he can deliver on them too. More often than not in the ordinary of life. The moments you least expect. In ways you never thought possible. Right when you think they don’t matter or there’s no hope, you stumble upon a shell, lazily rolling in the waves, waiting for you.
Oh, I gave my shell a good clean. Here it is in my loungeroom where it serves as a constant reminder that God cares about all our dreams. Big and small.
How can we hold the tension of the ‘now’ and ‘not yet’?
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