A man was 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 everyone 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.
I am so blessed by the gems of friendship I have
with you. Thank you for looking beyond my clay vessel.
Pass this on to another CLAY BALL!!!
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