Imperfectly Real

The center stone of my wedding set has a 'feather.' That’s a rather romantic name for what amounts to a chunk of diamond missing where one facet should be. I don’t know if the feather was always there—the set belonged to my husband’s mother before me.

The jeweler called about it when we left it to be sized. He put the diamond under his loupe and made a diagram of all the imperfections that make this stone unique. Someone else may have a ring that looks like mine, but like snowflakes and fingerprints, no two diamonds are exactly alike. I know what distinguishes mine from others.

In a diamond, the nature and quantity of inclusions can diminish the value of a stone, but in our modern age of lab-created colored gems, expert Walter Schumann explains, “Inclusions are common. They are not indicators of lower quality, but show the difference between a natural stone and a synthetic stone.”

I think we're a lot like diamonds. Our imperfections may not be visible to the naked eye, but the unique pattern of our lives is what sets us apart from one another.

I'm grateful that God sees me the way a jeweler sees a precious stone. My flaws or lack of maturity--bad attitudes, sharp tongue, overdeveloped sense of independence--don’t diminish my value to God. They show that I'm 'real' and leave room for Him to continue His work in me. But unlike gemstones, I am not in my final state. My 'feathers' can be filled and my 'inclusions' eliminated as the Master Jeweler continues his work in me.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." Philippians 3:12