Many years ago, I spent the summer on a lake in Vermont. I had a 35′ travel trailer at the campground and the lake was a hundred feet away. The idea of getting up each morning, going fishing and spending time in the quiet was pretty amazing. I walked around the woods and the lake each and every day no matter what the weather.

There was something there for me.

In the midst of a move I had not planned, a business I had not thought through and a daughter in the hospital for a year with a new son as well, my solace was in the quiet of the waters.

My daughter Amy spent a lot of time with me that summer. She and I would go down fishing after the work day and just sit on the beach. She began to collect shells (And snails!) and each day she would search through the waters, picking up the shells and putting them in a can.

Peace.

This morning I had a discombobulated thought process. A series of unusual dreams had kept me pretty well up and thinking during the night. When I came downstairs, the “frenzy” had left me without thoughts for some reason. As if my mind had just emptied. I knew there were things to think about but was unable to capture them.

And then I began to picture the lake. I have not been there in 25 years, but I could see the lake itself. All of it. And I could see Amy picking up the shells…

The shells were shimmering in her hands, the sunlight catching the colors. But they were empty. I felt the Lord simply say, “I am filling the emptiness”. A few weeks ago I stood in the sanctuary of our church fellowship and looked at the empty chairs. I did not see emptiness and the loss, but I saw potential for that which was to come.

I also saw that the shells represented a life lived. Too many feel as if they are the shell of what they were. They have forgotten the depth of His love that has filled them.

Isaiah 45:18 For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), “I am the LORD, and there is none else.

He formed you with the intent of filling you. He has hovered over you, moved over “your waters” and established form in the formless.

Today may you find peace where there has been no peace. May you uncover His purpose in your life for the fulfillment of His purpose through you.

I think about that can of shells and I am reminded of God’s words to Ezekiel. “Can these bones live?” The answer is yes!