I have always loved sea shells. I love their intricate designs, how each one is unique from the next. How they have their lines and edges, their scars and nicks. The thing about shells is that they are often far from perfect. That is because they have gone through life. They've had creatures live in them and have gone through individual experiences.

My room is full of sea shells. And each one always takes me by surprise when I examine them. Every shell has hidden details. Hidden scars that can give you a tiny insight to the life that was lived inside the contoured edges of a shell. And I thought that maybe that is a good representation of human life. How we all have our hidden scars and faults that can show how one has lived.

I find sea shells amazingly beautiful. I have this conch shell, pictured in the cover photo, it's not very large, and it is very battered. One of its spikes is broken off. There is a large fault running along the top. The tail end of it is also cracked and chipped. It is not polished, so it is rough to the touch. Despite all of this, it is one of my favorite shells, and one of my most beautiful, in my opinion.

I have polished shells. I have shells that have been polished and smoothed. Made to look prettier, buffed to make it seem that there were never any faults. Those shells, I tend to like a little less. I just feel like they're lying. No shell is that perfect. Shells need to show the life that have been lived in them. That's where I find the beauty in them.

The faults of a shell tells it's story. Their trials, fights won and lost, mistakes made. Their layers show age, the larger they are, the older they are. That alone shows the passage of time and how life moves on. All these shells show the lives of the animals that took refuge in them. They are all remnants of past lives.

It also makes me think about how God has a hand in such intricate things. God governs all things in this world, even the struggles of ocean crustaceans. He knows all the faults and scars hidden in this world. Even when we polish them over and try to hide them. Nothing in this life is ever perfect. Not people. Not shells. To try and hide faults and scars is to lie.

I love shells because they show the truth of life. I love to imagine the stories behind them. What kind of creature lived in my favorite conch shell before it was swept off the ocean floor, picked up on the beach and somehow found it's way to a shelf in my room. This shell has been places. It's been dragged across the ocean floor by the original snail who grew in it. It might have played host to a hermit crab. Maybe even multiple hermit crabs. I'll never know, but it is fun to speculate.

Shells are a good representation for life. They show the attention of God to intricate details. The can help us see the beauty in the display of faults and scars. Faults and scars show experience. And experiences help us to gain from the life we live. This all shows that something small can lead us to something bigger. Once my conch was a just a small snail, making it's way across completely new territory. Now it sits on my shelf. I see it every day and wonder about the experiences that led to where it is now. And I see beauty in it's faults because of that. Find beauty in the faults, wherever you see them.