A pearl may come in many guises. Recognising that you have a pearl can be a leap of faith or a step too far. Many times ignored or rejected. Know that the truth of the pearl is a rare find.

A pearl is polished to a fine degree, white and pure, from the grit of the world, imperfect in shape and colour, yet to the eye seeming perfect.

There is no design for the pearl. Its surroundings, living conditions, the tides of life…….each affect the pearl.

This pearl of beauty.

It is perfect in its imperfection, with changing hue, as it reacts to its world. You are the pearl beyond price in splendid isolation. Feeling the world tumble and turn around you. Feeling that you are in an environment in which you belong.

In fact you are at the bottom of the sea……where your light is hidden. You are encased in a shell and expected to shine forth with the God-light, through the cracks of your shell, to light the sea bed.

The pearl does not ask, “Why?….How long?……When? It gently, gradually, continually becomes the lightest, brightest pearl. It does not pretend to be an anemone or a starfish. It is a pearl. Fulfilling its destiny as a pearl to shine for others on the sea bed.

No one has knowledge of the pearl shining in the dark waters……….but the pearl comes to the realisation that it is a pearl. A product of its environment. Waves of time and sands of life honing its beauty. Which is only fully known when the shell is cast aside.

The pearl has no idea of its beauty. No idea of the sun or the vastness of the ocean. It knows only waves and sand and darkness. Yet fulfils its destiny………..to become a pearl and shine.

The pearl accepts its environment, knowing it cannot affect the waves and their flow. Nor can it help but be abraded by the sand because without these factors the pearl would not become burnished to its luminescent sheen. Each pearl, unique in colour and shape, is unable to avoid the grit of the sand, or the rhythm of the sea in its ebb and flow. The constants are the water, the shell, the sand. And yet a miracle occurs……and a pearl becomes…….and shines in the darkness.

How wonderful and truly amazing is this gift of an opportunity to shine.