What's so Special About Pearls?

The making of a pearl is no easy task. It is one that requires all the right ingredients to come together all at the right time. Somewhere deep in a blue ocean, a rushing river, or a murky pond or lake, far away from the grasp of human hands, lies a living oyster; isolated to the world, enclosed by its own shell, and sheltered from the colorful and sometimes dangerous world undersea. The oyster goes about its life hidden on the sandy floor day in and day out, being passed by fish and other sea creatures.

An oyster doesn’t have legs or fins, so it can’t go where it wants, anytime it wants. It is only bumped, pushed, and carried around to other places by other animals or carried away by the current. The life of an oyster is pretty simple, until one day...

One day, while the oyster’s valves are open to feed or “breathe,” a small particle floating in the water is lodged on the inside of the oyster’s shell. This particle irritates the oyster so much, that the oyster begins to deposit layers of a substance called “nacre” to try to push the particle out of its shell. Layer by layer, over the course of anywhere from a few months to several years, the nacre covers the particle, and a precious pearl is formed. This process is so rare that a pearl is found in only one out of every 100 living pearl oysters, and only one in 10 of those are actually of good quality.

Pearls are rare. The few times pearls are mentioned in the Bible, we’re shown that pearls are precious commodities. They are of great value, and have been used to describe objects that are priceless such as wisdom and even the gates of heaven (i.e., Matthew 7:6, Matthew 13:46, Revelation 21:21, etc.).

The long maturing process a pearl goes through reminds me a great deal of the process of becoming a young woman. For most young women, up until their “tween” and teen years were all the decisions that affected them, made by someone else. Remember when you were very young? Your parents or guardians picked out your clothes for you, bathed you, made all of your meals for you, told you what to do, and how to do it. You really didn’t have to make many difficult, daily decisions. You were literally living in a protective shell that your parents built for you to protect you from all the bad things that were in the world.

One day, if you have not already, you will be faced with a difficult, on-the-spot decision that you have to make, and no one may be there to immediately guide you in what direction you should take. What do you do? Just like the pearl, you will not always be protected by the shell that your parents have created for you, but with the right ingredients: the Bible and a good relationship with God, will you be able to step up to the challenge of exhibiting a quality of maturity so rare in this world and in this present age, that it shines as brightly and as boldly as a pearl does for an oyster.

Photograph courtesy of Jackie Cutlip-Niles. Copyright 2008, JCN Photography. All rights reserved.