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. Instead 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. Pass this on to another CLAY BALL

AWWWEEEE

He got lucky. Chances are the ones he threw away actually contained a
turd.

I understand so much of what you are saying; I've been there pretty much
all my life. I've always given people a chance. I learned very young
that a wonderful person can be in an unattractive package, and sometimes
the attractive packages are not people you want to spend time with. I
do believe that there has to be some sort of physical attraction, but
that is not the heart of the relationship

Oh, by the way, Mills, you don't think that you're unattractive do you?
Damn . . . you're pretty hot!

First off I meant to put on there that I DID NOT write it! Someone sent
it to me in an email but yeah I really identify with it.
Havin said that, thank you very much Lark

Mike, my thoughts exactly.
You ever see those pellets that owls puke up.
I think some people are just nasty inside.
Most are good though.

I think the point is it pays to check inside and not just discard
something because the outside isn't as appealing as you like (although
inspecting owl hairballs isn't my idea of fun either! LOL)