The Soul Jewel

“You’re about to lose that diamond,”

… said the jeweler conversationally. My eyebrows shot up in surprise. I had come in to have another ring resized. She just happened to see that two of the prongs on my wedding ring had worn completely off the top, and the others were dangerously thin. She put the ring under magnification, and I could see that she was right. Well, I guess that will happen after 42 years of constant wear! I handed it over to be reset, grateful that I had not lost the diamond, which, I was astonished to discover, had appreciated in value 10 times over the course of our marriage!

Though the gold settings sometimes have to be replaced, there is something universally treasured about the luster, the inner light, and the durability of diamonds and other precious stones. To me, they are a symbol of the soul. It’s that little piece of God with which every person is born, lives and dies. That divine spark, the spiritual part, the part that goes on when this body is vacated. The part that responds to God’s love and His work in our lives. If the body is made from mud, then the breath of God is the soul.

I imagine that God is the huge, cosmic jewel — impossibly vast and beautiful. He encompasses every color and sheen, too bright and dazzling for us to even look at or comprehend. And He has placed a tiny chip of His own Soul in each of us. Each one unique, in our own lovely combination of hues, our own jewel shape, our facets reflecting His light with our own sparkling beauty and resilience.

“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world
and lose or forfeit their very self? ”

This jewel is our own most true and essential self. In Luke 9:32, Jesus poses the possibility of gaining the world but losing our “very self.” And how commonly this happens! We get hurt, so we protect ourselves. Perhaps by lashing out in anger, or by curling up into ourselves. By seeking acceptance and approval by being what we’re not, or by dulling the pain with distractions and addictions. In all these ways and more, the jewel gets covered over in layer upon layer of grime.

But yet, it’s still there. You see it in relationships where couples stay in love even when they’ve seen each other at their least attractive, their most broken, cranky and unpleasant. It’s because, with true love, you have seen the other person’s soul, and that’s what you love. Like in the movie, “Hook,” when Robin Williams tells the Lost Boys that he is Peter Pan, and Pockets comes up close to his face, squishes his cheeks around with his fingers, then, looking deep into his eyes, says, “Oh! There you are, Peter!” Seeing and recognizing and loving someone’s purest essence is what true love is all about. I am sure that when Jesus looked into the eyes of whoever He met, He saw and loved their souls, their true selves.

Next post: Finding the Glimmer