A Precious Gem
written 2003?
As I have travelled on a journey of healing through many years of counselling, I have been offered the opportunity of “letting go” of painful events that have shaped the inner sadness that I have carried for many years. My biggest fear, however, was always that if I were to be stripped of the only reality I have known (however negative and painful) which has previously defined me, there would be nothing left within me once it is gone.
This has always brought out my fear of worthlessness, emptiness and my own ugliness within. But this is where my faith in Christ has offered me the stepping stone out of this vortex (if I dare to step), because I now realize that we are all nothing and worthless without Christ. Yet I am also reminded that we are each paradoxically of infinite value in God’s eyes.
As I have pondered this concept, I’ve had a vivid visual image of that “infinite worth” in which God holds each of us – the image of a precious gem which metaphorically resides at the very core of our physical and spiritual being. Small and compact compared to all that is packed around it, yet it holds the key to one’s true beauty in its depth of colour, clarity and design. It is that which belongs to us alone, which cannot be taken or altered by anyone or any circumstance in life.
It really doesn’t matter at all what surrounds that core – whether it be great wealth, physical beauty or charm, or the filth of neglect, abuse or seemingly insurmountable sin. What God wants, seeks, and values only is the core of that precious gem in its simple purity, the substance of which cannot ever be smashed or scratched or devalued in His sight.
Ultimately what we are to seek in our Christian journey is to be able to inwardly peel back and chip away the layers of emotional granite, mud or whatever surrounds and buries that core – and then to hold it in awe, take in its beauty, and present it back in reverence and gratitude to its Maker for His crown (You will be a crown of splendour in the LORD’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. Isaiah 62:3)
To see it clearly in ourselves is to see the true Christ as He is reflected and enthroned within each of us. Conversely, no matter what we pack around it in trying to make ourselves beautiful and of value, without Christ we succeed only in burying our true beauty and value, and so burying Christ with it.
By allowing myself to peel back all these layers and once and for all discarding them, I can now take that step of trust and faith, knowing that at the core I will find my own pure and precious gem that reflects Christ within me, and that no one can ever take or defile. And I know that I need no longer fear this “nakedness”, because then – and only then – will I be fully clothed in God’s righteousness and wholly beautiful! Praise God!
