DIAMONDS OR PEARLS?

Diamonds may be a girl's best friend, but the elegance and glamour of pearls is timeless.

My Grand Pearly Girlie

I love pearls and have a favorite strand.  I love to wear pearl ear rings for no occasion.  Each pearl reminds me of all my imperfections and irritants I have faced through out life.  I get so irritated at life sometimes.
Pearls are formed by oysters getting irritated by something as small as a grain of sand.
  The process is fascinating:
 "A tiny grain of sand gets in an oyster's shell, and the mollusk wraps it in layers of nacre the same substance its shell is made from to protect itself from further harm.  Of course, that just makes the irritant bigger, so another layer is added.  And so on and so forth, until the oyster is harvested and the pearl is removed."

The Real & The fake

 In the end, with the irritation gone, a beautiful pearl is formed.  When I have to work at life the hardest, those irritants turn into those things I have treasured the most.
When all is not what I would like it to be those irritants, those circumstances in life rob me of peace and joy.

"Pearls are, indeed always appropriate"Jackie Kennedy

Yes, some of my greatest treasures have come from darker days of my life and irritants placed in my oysters of life by my Heavenly Father.
So you see, I must be a cultured pearl, instead of the accidental pearl as God allows the irritants to form a beautiful, costly pearl. 

Matthew 13:45-46 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it."
 
"Recently, a jeweler friend of ours sent us his beautiful interpretation of Jesus' parable of the pearl and we wanted to share it with you.
In Matthew 13, we see that a merchant sold all that he had to purchase a single pearl. But why, of all things, a pearl? 

As a jeweler, I would question the choice the Lord made -- choosing to leave the Father's side for a pearl instead of what I would think has much greater significance, the much coveted diamond.
 You may know that the diamond is graded in value according to the 4 C's, Cut, Color, Clarity & Carat-weight. The answer to my pondering was right there! The diamond receives a substantial portion of its value from the way a person cuts it -- the work of man's hand! Interestingly, the only natural gemstone that has more value when it is found than when men finish with it is the PEARL!

The Grand of all pearls

In the same way, we can add nothing to the work of Salvation! God has paid the price for us in full -- and a tremendous price it was. The God of glory, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords left all the splendor of Heaven to claim this pearl. And He gained it by paying a price that was far more precious than any of us could pay.
 

My first Pearly Girlie

Sometimes we get so busy and we don't take time out consider this incredible work of God in our lives. He has bought us with a price. We are fully paid, fully ransomed, fully redeemed! We are the pearls of great desire! Let's walk in that victory today!" ~Worthy Devotions

Aunt Janet Landis, Dad's middle sister

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