Clay Balls

A man was exploring caves by the Seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of harden clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them 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 small 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 about 50 to 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure he could have taken tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!

It is like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and 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, and if we ask God to show that person the way He sees them, 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 they way God sees them.

I am so blessed by gems of friendship I have with you. Thank you for looking beyond my clay vessel.

I don't know who wrote this, but it touched my heart.