Full Hands

  I found myself walking the sandy shoreline I’d worn out so many times before in deep conversation with the Lord. Well, I’m not sure it was a conversation per say…I was doing most of the talking. My heart was aching over all I didn’t have—a dream job, a husband, a home of my own and someday a child. I had turned twenty-four the week before and I seemed stuck. I had pictured myself so much farther in life at this point. My hands seemed empty; my heart incomplete. I had been waiting for a breakthrough—something, anything to know that God was still there, still planning to give me the desires of my heart.
“Lord.” I cried out. “Give me a sign that you are going to answer these prayers. I am getting hopeless that they will never happen. I am struggling.”
“Ask me,” He says. “Ask me for something small and I will show you I am here. I am faithful.”
I looked at all the seashells lining the shore and I quietly asked, “Let me find a whole sand dollar.” I kept my eyes glued downward for the sight of one, but there were only pieces—pieces of shells and pieces of sand dollars broken along the shore. Maybe my faith was weak. Maybe I didn’t really believe He would answer it. Maybe deep down I was just too inconsequential.
I looked down. I scanned the sand. I looked down, over, down, down…
“Are you collecting seashells?” A voice interrupts my moment with God.
            I look up.
An elderly lady is also bent over the shells looking for treasures or looking for her own answers from God. I’m not sure. Before I can answer she launches into conversation, telling me about the different shells.
“This one,” She holds up a white, smooth shell that curves in an odd way, “it's called baby’s ear. If you look at it you will see why.”
I look at the shell she is holding and sure enough it is shaped like a tiny ear resting in her palm. How appropriate I think that she would choose to tell me about a shell shaped like an ear. Maybe God was listening. Maybe I wasn’t.
“Here.” She says handing me the shells she has collected, filling both my hands. “You can have these.”
I stare at them overflowing from my hands, unsure of what to think. I hadn’t asked for shells. I had been talking to God. I had asked for a sand dollar. A tiny, whole sand dollar.
“Thank you.” I smile, trying to be appreciative of her generosity and feeling a little guilty that I was taking her treasures with less awe than she seemed to have.
I walked away thinking I don’t have to waste anymore time looking for a sand dollar because I don’t have any room left in my hands. And that’s when it hit me.
God’s still, small voice gently whispered:
“You don’t have to limit yourself to your own small ideas. You don’t need just a sand dollar to believe. I provide above and beyond in my own way.”
I didn’t need a sand dollar anymore because when I had looked up, God had provided.
My hands were full.  

      -Only Hope

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