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 itcracked 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 every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, 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. May we see the people in our world as God sees them.

I am so blessed by the gems of friendship I have with you. Thank you for looking beyond my clay vessel!


XOX- Stu

I loved him on American Idol!

sweetness

That's a very nice story. Though I would say he went into the ocean to retreave the "clay balls" and was taken out to sea by the undertoe and drowned.

Thus, he lost all.



[Edited 3/22/06 14:47pm]

2the9s said:

Ohhhh...

butterfli25 said:

Baby!

MickG said:

Yeah, this dude wasn't gay! My people would have been out there fishing for those jewels!

applekisses said:

...and here's Clay's cum-rag!

There are many true gems here.

Lovely story,I have someone I'm going to share that with.

beautiful

who put jewels in the clay balls? that's weird

Did someone say GEM!?




M

That's cool.
I don't usually like to emote, but for just this one time, I will say this;

I regard each & every one of you as my clay balls.

Moustacheman! Great story!

Wadeaminit!


This story is somewhat derived from a Bible verse:

"However, we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the power beyound what is normal may be God's and not that out of ourselves."

(2 Corinthians 4:7)

Heard it before?

Justin1972UK said:

!!!!!
I was waiting for a Gayken joke

DynamicSavior said:

Yeah. Clay should choose his "vessels" more wisely in future.

Heiress said:

That's what i was thinking.

your vessel is so thin, the gem shines through it.

dawntreader said:

U2 boy!

What a beautiful story.


to think that people complain about Imago's clay balls.

Beautiful moral...

I would only add to it, though, that unlike the clay balls, we have free will and freedom to break our own "clay outsides" and show everyone the gems we truly are inside. Let's not leave it up to everyone else to do it for us...