I subscribe to a weekly email newsletter through Radiant Magazine (www.radiantmag.com). The article I read this morning was incredible and I think there is an important message for all of us. I hope you enjoy as much as I did.
Thank you Felicity for sharing your inspiring thoughts.
A Diamond’s True Beauty
By Felicity White
Part of the creative genius of God is that He seems to have encoded little messages to us in the most unexpected places. One of my favorites comes from the half-carat diamond in my engagement ring. I’m not sure if I fell in love with this diamond because it came from the guy of my dreams or because it is the single most expensive item I’ve ever owned outside of my Corolla, but this diamond has illustrated more valuable lessons to me than anything I’ve learned from the trendy self-help books decorating my bedroom shelves.
The messages started with a simple revelation. In the days following my engagement I was acutely aware of my left hand. Did I always bang it on the bathroom stall like that? Had I always dragged it along the stairway railing as if it were barely connected to my body? I noticed every time I bumped into one of my student’s desks or fumbled with my cell phone in my purse. I started having crazy dreams involving the discovery that the ring was a fake. I knew this because it would crumble in my fingers like a clod of dirt or shatter on the ground in a million pieces. I would awake in a panic, find my perfectly intact ring on the bedside table and laugh at myself. I took the ring off for showers and for my frequent applications of antibacterial hand lotion.
After a few weeks of this obsessive behavior I started to get the picture. Nothing was happening to my diamond. I would carefully check it over for scratches or any sign of damage, but I realized that I wasn’t going to find anything. This gem was made for a lifetime of wearing—jewelers knew what they were doing when they decided which precious stone should become the symbol of every American male’s undying love. I got the message—this diamond is not just beautiful; it is a symbol of strength and endurance.
I took the lesson to heart for my own life. I started imagining myself as that little gem: beautiful, mysterious and strong. I became so interested that I started studying diamond websites and actually checking out books at the library about the history of diamonds and their cultural significance. This has been fascinating and enlightening. I’m more convinced than ever that God gave us diamonds and other rare rocks as reminders of the kind of women He wants us to be. After all, Peter refers to believers as living stones, and John’s description in Revelation of the City of God includes costly and precious stones, not gray slabs of dull rock.
The real beauty of a diamond is found on the inside. We love the fireworks and tiny rainbows created when light hits the stone, but those are just the effects of good clarity and the right cut on the inside of the diamond. Clarity means the diamond itself is free of flaws and inclusions, little non-diamond particles that can’t even be seen with the human eye. You have to look through a special jeweler’s loupe to even see these inclusions, but a diamond with a lot of flaws won’t produce sparkle like it should. Just like the sins and weaknesses in our character, these inclusions block light and muddy what should be crystal-clear material.
Clarity and cut are important criteria for deciding how much an individual diamond is worth. A small diamond with few inclusions and a perfect cut will cost more than the bigger carat with hidden flaws or an inferior cut. The cut is a precise, scientific process that involves perfect angles and dimensions to achieve maximum light reflection. I imagine it like the sometimes difficult path of discipleship: It can be time-consuming and painful, but the results are well worth the effort. Even when offered a diamond a few tenths of a carat larger than the one I received, I stuck with the stone that stood out from the rest on that little square of black velvet on the jewelry counter. It just had more sparkle. I didn’t know then that it was because of its clarity and balanced cut that this particular diamond projected so much more light than even the larger ones nearby.
This pretty stone has demonstrated to me that the life of beauty I want on the outside starts on the inside. If things are out of sync in my depths, it shows on my surface. To reflect the light of Jesus as remarkably as He shines it into my life in the first place, I have to be willing to examine my soul for clarity and submit to the cuts of discipleship. When I believe in and act upon these simple messages from my diamond, I learn to reflect His light with brilliance to a dark world. I become a rare rock living life from the inside out.
