A few weekends ago, on Saturday, I was at the beach with family and the Lord told me to pick up the broken half-sand-dollar pictured above (Before I put it in my pocket and sat on it, the half was in one piece. Oops). I didn’t understand why, but I did it anyway, and God didn’t explain (It’s called “obedience”). A bit later, I took it out of my pocket and asked Him again why He had me pick it up, and He said to me:

“Even when you are broken, you are beautiful.”

As a stand-alone idea, this might already speak to some of you, and I hope it does. I thought it was a beautiful representation of God’s boundless love for me, and the same applies to you. However, there is a little more back-story to this, and why it touched me so deeply, and I hope it also does the same for you.

I have recently been working with a prayer counseling team for my own inner healing and personal transformation. All of the sessions have been good, and God has been doing really awesome things to bring greater freedom and wholeness into my life, but not every session ends on a high note. The session I had the day before finding this sand dollar left me grieving the loss of some things, and my weekend was emotionally on the rough side. It was important to go through the process, but it was difficult and I felt very broken after the fact. When God spoke to me that even when I am broken, I am beautiful, it made me cry—something I had been doing a lot of that weekend, but this was also healing in its own special way.

What God said to me reminds me of Song of Solomon 1:5, which says, “Dark am I, yet lovely”. The subsequent verses of that passage explain why the woman who makes the above statement feels she isn’t worthy of being loved, but the man explains to her that in spite of what she feels about herself, he sees her as altogether lovely and worth far more than she could imagine.

One of the beautiful things about God is that He is incredibly kind and gentle. When we are going through rough moments, He is there to encourage and uplift us. For everyone reading this who is going through a tough time, and you feel like your inner brokenness is weighing you down, just remember that even when you are broken, you are still beautiful. God loves you, is actively working to bring about good things in your life. In the words of John Lennon, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” Keep putting one foot in front of the other; keep moving forward. You will make it.