Watercolored Pearls

[Psalmist0827]

She asked her four guests to open their bags. They each poured three pearls of varying colors into their palms. "I firmly believe pearls symbolize life, and how God can create something beautiful out of tragedy, shame or sin, as long as we are willing to be transformed."
"A brief science lesson, ok?" Charlotte continued as each woman nodded. "Pearls are formed inside of oysters or other mollusks living in the sea. Unless something gets inside of an oyster's shell, the oyster just swims along in life with no need to change or grow or pay attention to the outside world."
"So the oyster is just swimming along until an irritant, a foriegn object, somehous gets under its shell and begins to infiltrate its layers," she said. "An oysters body reacts by producing a substance that forms hard and shiney layer upon layer around the irritating object, to isolate and surround it. In doing so, the oyster accomplishes two tasks: it protects it's body and creates something lasting and beautiful -- a pearl. We aren't much different, are we?"
"Irritants or foreign objects infiltrate our lives in the form of bad choices, jealousy, fear, deep loss, and countless other challenges I could name. We choose how to handle the things that come, either by rallying our strength and faith and finding a way to go on, or by giving in to the pressure and giving up. When we choose to stand up sinsed and protect our spirits, our hearts, and the essense of whowe are, we produce a substance similar to what the oyster produces to form the pearl. In us, it's called character, integrity, grace courage, and the ability to love ourselves and others, with no strings attached. The things we have been through, or are going through, are producing layers in us. We are becoming more than our circumstances. We're multicolored and multilayered. We come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, determined by the shape, size, and color of the irritants that float into our lives."

Each of us bears the scars and the choices that have brought us to where we are in life. We are all translucent yet very different, and we are supposed to be. We are the color of water that ebbs and flows with the tides of life. We are watercolored pearls.

(Taken from the book "Watercolored Pearls" by Stacy Hawkins Adams)