The Fish Bowl...

June 5, 2009

Danielle Joyner Kelley

"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." Genesis 1:2.

Whenever I have the chance to stand in front of the ocean I am given a valuable opportunity. An opportunity to realize how insignificant I really am. Trust me, it is not a bad thing. With what I consider all my plaguing problems it is actually quite good. I am only a grain of sand in the vast phenomenon we call the universe. My energy is here but it will pass on.

Today I stood in front of the ocean and thought about such things. Still the world surrounds me. While I am standing, I am also watching my three small children while their father and my husband whom is a baseball coach attends a dinner. That is not common for him. We are on what I like to call our way up hopefully. He will be the first to tell you that as a coach he didn't get far until the maker of that vast ocean came into the picture.

I'm in awe. While watching my kids a child runs up. She looks like she is my oldest sons age. She immediately steps in to help me and tell them not to be afraid of the water. While I am helping them in the water she keeps talking. Most people would be irritated while watching three kids, but I am not. I stop to look at the never ending sky above me and I realize I will probably never see her again, so I engage in the conversation.

This little being tells me about what she has been through and how she lives with her cousin. My heart sinks at what her little spirit is enduring. Then I stop. I realize that her spirit is much stronger than mine. She is full of hope, kindness, patience, and love.

She reaches into the sand and says she found a sand dollar. I was thinking there is no way that could be true on the shore of a populated beach. She hands me pieces of a broken sand dollar with pride and tells me it is a whole one. I look down at the pieces she has placed in my hand and look back up at her smiling face. Then I think to myself that she believes it is whole.

With her spirit if she believes it then it is. Jesus said if you have the faith to believe the mountain moves into the sea it does. And while holding a little child he tells us , in so many words, that we must have faith like children to inherit the kingdom. He was really on to something big we should all consider.

Still sitting there she tells me to put those pieces in a fish bowl to make sure they don't break apart. I started to say I didn't have to but I looked at those blue eyes and knew I don't know everything.

Those pieces are broken and I have seen a million of them before but not this way. I am getting my fish bowl right now. There is so much I still have to learn and so much from those much younger than me. Jesus really did know, didn't He?

Still looking at that vast skyline and never ending ocean I know God is amazing. From that little girl I realize that He is not just in the sky, He is down in the water talking to me and handing me a broken sand dollar.

Then the biggest lesson hits me. We are all broken and don't make sense, but He is buying a fish bowl for our scattered pieces anyway.