Seashell Center

a road to grace

Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote in her classic, Gifts From the Sea,

“Simplification of outward life is not enough. It is merely the outside. But I am starting with the outside. I am looking at the outside of a shell, the outside of my life…This is only a technique, a road to grace. The final answer, I know, is always inside.”

Last week my family took a holiday to Tybee Island on the Atlantic coast by Savannah, Georgia. It’s a fun spot with interesting coastal combing because of the great swell of tides along the concave shape of the southern states. The very first morning my eager eleven-year-old daughter took a sunrise walk with my can’t-stay-in-bed-past-5:30 husband, and she declared upon her return that the grand mission of the trip was to find a whole conch shell.

“I saw a woman who had found one, so now I know it’s possible!”

Alas, she never did. At least, not a large conch shell that was uninhabited. Those hermit crabs grab them right up. Every time we dug one out, it already had an owner paying rent.  However, it did set an occupation and purpose in this mama mind of mine that I help her achieve her aim over the course of our stay, which is my general mission in life – help my children reach out toward their aspiration.

From sunrise to sunset between other sightseeing adventures, we spent many hours walking the shoreline, enjoying the tidal pools and hunting for treasure - not coins made by man, but the intricate workings and designs washed ashore day after day for millennia. The display of seaside wealth never fails to astonish in its variety and the distinctiveness of each shell’s pattern, form, and purpose.

Lazily looking about the beach on a sunny and very breezy hour of our stay, I spied the slender curve of a conch under the sand. Excited as a schoolgirl, I snatched it up only to discover not a whole shell, but the strong central spiral of one finished with its grand design. As initial disappointment wore off, I held it thoughtfully. It was beautiful… a little glow of contemplation.

Here, I have the heart of the shell.

Here, I hold the shell’s inner strength.

Here, I behold the usually hidden, long lasting core of a home.

As I meditated on the value of the metaphor, I realized that the worn smooth, curved center of this once magnificent tidal wonder, is exactly who I want to be. “Beauty is fading,” the Proverb warns, “but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30). At forty-something, I face the first half of this truth daily! But what about the second part?

The remnant in my hand had come so far. Who knows how many miles across the ocean lay the spot where it began to build its framework? Slowly, it had curved around and become a home for the soft dweller it was designed to protect. How much like my own journey as a young mother, building my home for young people, tender and vulnerable and needing protection? Yet now, already, they are beginning to move out – my oldest is getting married this summer! Three other teenagers follow him, quickly becoming adults, and even my youngest has eight years at the most before launching into her life away from mine. I wonder, will others find a house in our home like the hermit crab? I’m open to it. But whether they do or not, eventually time will wash over my life, wave upon wave, and break down the fancier versions of my identity. Indeed, I’ve already experienced a knock here and there that caused part of the design to fade.

This is all natural, a life cycle of one beautiful inhabitant of earth, created with a purpose that has a beginning, middle and end.

At the end, the core of a shell is picked up lovingly by a treasure hunter and taken home. Back in land-locked country, it lies on a writing desk inherited from my grandma… another woman who lived out her life as a strong center of home. And I’m inspired to be content in my own purpose, vital to a family even while gradually wearing away… never lost to the seashell Collector who designed me for this beautiful existence.