Clay Balls
A
man 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
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 friendship I have with you.
Thank you for looking beyond my clay vessel.
Author Unknown
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