I got this from my good friend, Marcia.
Too good not to share with all of you.

Rich and I are headed to Alabama this week as he interviews on the coast near Mobile.
We survived our move and are settled for now. Our AC went out this weekend and the maintenance man was just here installing a new one (yea)!

Sometimes God tests us to see what we are made of. Hoping we passed the test.

A man was exploring caves by the seashore. In one of the caves he
found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like
someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake.
They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the
bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would
throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.

He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and
it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!
Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each
contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of
jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left. Then it struck him.

He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of
the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. In
stead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home
tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!

It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves,
and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from
the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.

We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or
stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to
find the treasure hidden inside that person.

There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time
to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person
the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the
brilliant gem begins to shine forth.

May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have
thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in
bits of clay.

May we see the people in our world as God sees them.

I am so blessed by the gems of friendship I have with each of you.
Thank you for looking beyond my clay vessel.