The Parable of the Sand Dollar

The other day I went for one of my regular work out in the ocean evenings with a friend.

On that day, my friend dive down and surfaced with the shell of a sand dollar. She checked first that it was indeed dead.

She then looked at me and said, “Let's play a game! One of us throws this and the other has to dive to find it. Then the one that finds it throws it for the first one to dive down and find it.”

The sand dollar was almost flat and very thin. Though it would not float, it would sink very slowly in a gentle motion.

Anyways, the point is, we were searching for something delicate and not easily seen. The sand dollar was similar in colour to that of the sand.

Now when my friend threw it, I quickly swam towards the direction of her throw to find it. We were in maybe 15 feet of water and I was not sure if I would be able to find it if it sank to the bottom. Truefully I am not the worlds'greatest swimmer and though I can free dive a little I had no desire to be scurrying around on the ocean floor looking for this thing, while my precious supply of oxygen disappeared from my lungs. After all if I use up all my oxygen down there, I won't have any left to come back up with. Not to mention the fact that my ears were giving a little trouble to be equalised.

So with all these things in mind, I dove furiously after this little sand dollar. Fortunately it was still drifting slowly down... in fact it was clearly visible once I had submerged and I reached frantically for it before it could get away from me. “I must get it before it is too late I thought. Get it I did. Unfortunately sand dollars are quite fragile. And as I grasped it with both hands, I felt it break. It broke into 3 pieces. I was quite upset, because I realised that I had destroyed something beautiful in my attempt to not let it get away. It was at this point that my friend found a small piece of dead coral to use for our game instead. I did try to keep the pieces of the sand dollar. They spent most of the rest of the beach visit relaxing on our boogie board. Unfortunately, as we walked out of the sea, a wave splashed over the boogie board and took one of the pieces away. My plan to save the broken sand dollar to glue it back together was dashed into pieces and eventually we threw the other two pieces away.

This is not the most fascinating story that has been ever told, but it does have great significance.

How many times in our lives, in mine and in yours, have we destroyed the very delicate thing of beauty that we were looking for? (SELAH)

Perhaps we were looking for someone's heart. A heart that meant a lot to us, but maybe, we were really playing a game, or too anxious, or really not too careful, we broke that heart and eventually lost the heart.

See, the trouble isn't that we humans do not appreciate beauty or worth. The trouble is that most times, we do not know how to handle it when we have found it.

Maybe the heart that we were searching for was that of a spouse, or a potential significant other, or perhaps a good friend, a parent or a child. Maybe it was the heart of a person we didn't realise was lifeless inside. Maybe it was our own heart. Maybe it was the heart of God.

You see if I had not been so anxious to get the sand dollar before it had sank too deep out of my reach, maybe I would have actually gotten it, and kept it intact. Maybe if I had taken a second to observe where it was going, and how quickly it was sinking, maybe I could have swam closer to it and scooped it up instead of snatching at it! Maybe!

Maybe if I had greater confidence in my own abilities, or even had more skill, I could have swam after it and scooped it up more carefully. Maybe!

Hearts are even more delicate than sand dollars, and can easily be bruised, or broken.

Rather than rushing to find a beautiful heart and to keep it for ourselves, maybe it is better to observe it and see where it is going so that we can encounter it on its journey.

Rather than stopping the heart from going to the depths where it is meant to go, we can improve ourselves and our own abilities so that we can go deep with it.

Rather than snatching at the heart, maybe we can cradle it and bring it to a place were we can coexist peacefully and in safety.

The next time that you encounter a heart, that you want to keep... remember the sand dollar, understand the lesson, and be wise.