JEWELER NOT JUDGE
In a recent Faith Sharing group at St. Basil's, I shared about a ring my brother bought me as a thank you gift for a trip to Mexico where we met up with some of our cousins and friends of mine from work.
The ring was and still is beautiful-- 14 k gold with an opal in the centre, my birthstone.
The word "birth" is not lost on me as I write this blog post today.
Back when my brother bought me the ring I was lost, angry and struggling after having had an abortion.
Now fast forward about 30 years and back to my Faith Sharing group: I continued telling them the story about the ring my brother bought me a long long time ago in Mexico.
I told the group how I still have the ring, but that the opal fell out of the setting years ago.
Stay with me: At the half-way point of Lent this year I had an impulse to retrieve from my jewelry
box the ring my brother bought me in Mexico. Immediately an idea came to me.
I would fix the empty ring that was missing its precious gem.
And I knew exactly how I would do it.
In my jewelry box was also a lone antique mother-of-pearl earring given to me by my mother. I'd lost the other one years before. I've lost a lot of jewelry over the years and have felt so guilty about it.
Now guilt was changing to something else. I was blind, BUT SUDDENLY I could see how the ring my brother bought me in Mexico was deeply connected to my abortion. I could feel, with my own hands, how God was putting the lost and broken pieces back together again to make a NEW CREATION.
If I could fix the ring would it mean I could make something beautiful out of loss?
From my twenty-three-year-old heart the tears came. ("Out of the belly of Sheol I cried... Jonah 2:2)
And
when they stopped, I got out my tweezers, crazy glue, and desk lamp. I carefully glued the tiny mother of pearl
shamrock earring onto the empty setting in the centre of my old Ring. "So,
if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has
passed away; see, everything has become new! (2 Corinthians 5:17)
It had taken so long, but in one small moment my old ring was new again.
I was awestruck and also at peace-- (Philippians 4:6).
Now my image of God is that of a Jeweler not a Judge.
The One who will always put me back into the setting when I fall out.
If you are struggling today, I pray YOU TOO will believe that.
AND I REALLY like to think that when the sun sets on my favourite beach in Mexico for the last time-- the Holy Trinity of Father, Jeweler and Beachcomber will gather up all the lost gems and precious children and put them back into their setting in Heaven.
I share this story (past and present) to give hope and comfort if you or someone you love needs it right now.
You are not alone.
Cb
Amen
