Thanks, Meg, For the Encouragement to BLOG Already!

Okay, when we arrived at the beach house in Bandon, I gave an assignment right off the bat. Each lady was to go walk on the beach for an hour and pick up items with which she could decorate the small paper boxes I handed out. What a fantastic assortment and variety of decor we had at the end of the decorating time!

Our study was from Pamela Reeve's little Book Parables by the Sea. As we completed each lesson, each lady received a keepsake to place within her box to remind her of the lesson we had just learned. The first was The Parable of the Shell - God's infinite skill and creativity as He made individual patterns for each shell in the ocean and as He created each one of us, and the keepsake I handed out was...
...a baby sand dollar, no larger than a quarter.

The next morning's lesson was The Parable of the Tidepool, God's life filling us with life! No barren tidepool this, but filled with star fish, sea urchins, tiny fish and so much more. This lesson's keepsake for our little boxes was...

...a baby star fish, again smaller than a quarter.

Saturday evening's lesson was The Parable of the Waves, God's power moving in us to effect change in the lives of those around us. It isn't the water that erodes so much as the strength of the tides and currents moving the water. This was a bit more of a puzzler to figure a keepsake for but eventually Priscilla and I arrived at...

...the ocean in a glass vial. The water cannot move on its own, but is moved by an external force.

This is the inside of my own box. Obviously there is much more snuggled in here than the three keepsake reminders. But they are also here, and will always remind me that God has an individual pattern for my life, that the important thing is that His life lives in me, and that I can effect other's lives as I allow Him to move in me.