“You keep track of my sorrows. You have collected my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” Psalm 56:8

Sea Glass

My tears pour out like liquid crystals. I know that God catches them. He saves them in His bottle, the one with my name on it. God collects tears like I collect sea glass.

When my life shattered four years ago, I would spend much time near the ocean. There is one beach in particular that was not crowded, and I could walk for hours. I would collect sea glass and pray. I would find a piece of softened glass, broken off of what it had originally been, and put it in my pocket. Sometimes I would find one that was still jagged on the edges and I would throw it back into the ocean. 

It wasn’t done becoming yet.

At the end of the day, I would empty my pockets and see what I had. White, green, blue, turquoise, and brown glass pieces, all of which had at one point been something, and then reduced to only a tiny fraction of what they had been. But the ocean and its tossing had gotten hold of these shards, and through the tumbling of the waves, each piece of broken glass had been softened and smoothed, and eventually deposited back on the shore where someone like me would recognize it as a jewel, and collect it to put into my own jar with other pieces of sea glass.

If you were to find the original “whatever” it had once been a part of, you would not be able to piece it back into the whole; it would no longer fit.

All of the pieces of sea glass together are like silent tears bearing witness to their own devastation. I wonder sometimes if the tears the Lord stores in jars are actually treasures to Jesus. He knows the broken story behind every one. He can pick up each tear and say, “Do you remember what happened here, child? Even if you have forgotten this part your story, I have not.”

God Himself is holding my broken pieces, collecting my tears. When I look at my jar of glass once sharply dangerous, now soft, I remember this:

He died and He suffered,

His body broken like cheap glass to be stepped on and tossed away;

He broke Himself completely,

Came down to Earth’s shore,

And became the very treasure

Which would heal my own.

Father, thank You that Your Word says in Revelation 21, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then He said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’” Oh, how I cling to this promise. In Jesus’ name, Amen.