Missing God-Spired moments

I am so God-spired at the beach, y’all. Something about no schedule and late nights, I really allow God to speak through the smallest of things. My last post was God-spired but also kicked off by my sweet mama saying “well if that doesn’t sound like your next blog”...I love my sweet mama, she gets me. Sometimes I forget to pay attention to the God-spired moments and people like my sweet mama remind me to pray about it so I can be led with His spirit. Sometimes I forget that He has blessed me with the gift of gab and that I must pay attention to the nuggets of wisdom that He gives me through my sweet girl.  Being at the beach I seem to be more aware of these moments but tonight, I almost missed a God-spired moment again...🙄🤷🏼‍♀️ I blame exhaustion.

We were out hunting shells while Sadie was literally chasing the pink sky, and I noticed she kept dropping tiny shells in my bucket. I couldn’t hear what she was saying each time she put one in the bucket so I just smiled as she ran around finding more. When I asked her what the shell was she said “it’s a butterfly shell and we have to keep them. It’s important”. 

Everything is important to this precious 3 year old so my first thought was that I would just rid them when she wasn’t looking because they are tiny and they’re too small. But that’s when God was like “hello Lauren, just because you can’t see the beauty doesn’t mean someone else can’t”. Such an elementary concept, right? Turns out this “butterfly shell” is called a Coquina...a tiny clam shell. They are like the size of your fingernail. It has two holes on each side, smart folks call them siphons but us common folk would say “tiny hole”. One takes in food and oxygen while the other dumps waste. The shells she was finding are open and look like a butterfly. I guess the tiny clam has come out and all that’s left are the open shells....I don’t really know, but from what I understand they are basically temporary houses for the tiny clam. So as far as their purpose, they’ve served it. But let me tell you something, through those sweet butterfly shells God taught me an old lesson. Much like we are taught about having  a “child like faith”, I saw that the beauty my child sees is way different than mine. Her perspective isn’t jaded like mine. So what I may see as too small to matter or waste, she sees as a butterfly. We adults are so jaded by the world, distracted by our stressors, and worried by obligations that we often miss the beauty that our sweet little ones see. I saw a purpose filled, washed up shell become beauty to a 3 year old. I was not only taught a lesson on beauty and perspective, but quickly reminded that no matter where we are in life, how purpose filled we feel, how worthless or washed up we may think we are, God can still use us. 

God has purpose for our pain, healing in His name and He works all things together for good.

Praise Hands for that! 🙌🏼