The Ring

The Ring

My sister-in-law, for my twenty-ninth birthday, mailed me a tiny gold ring inset with a freshwater pearl. Her cards are always the best—each square inch of paper filled with words of encouragement—and in that card she told me I was God’s pearl of great price, and that He loved me. I slipped the ring on my pinkie finger, where it stayed from August until December.

Every day, I saw that ring, and every day, I was reminded of God’s love for me, and that He had sent His son to die for me in order to make me His. I don’t believe I’ve ever fully grasped that God desires me for who I am, not for who I will one day be.

That, if I never changed from this moment forward (and today—sticky and hot with fussy children who want to snuggle—has not been the most flattering representation of my character), God would’ve still paid that price for me, His pearl.

If you’ve followed this blog at all, you know that I struggle with fear. Every day, fear seems to sneak its way into my vocabulary (“That worries me,” or “I fear that . . .”). The subject matter always changes, but the struggle never does. Because I realize this is a weakness, I am making a conscious effort to remove fear not only from my lexicon, but from my thoughts as well.

One of the ways God has helped me overcome fear is by helping me understand His love for me. Just as the Bible says perfect loves casts out fear, I understand that God loves me perfectly.

Because I love my children more than life, I never want them to experience pain; however, I realize that sometimes pain is necessary for them to learn how to make it through this world—and, furthermore, what they need to learn in order to make it to the world to come.

In December, I returned to Tennessee for Christmas. One night, after supper, my sister-in-law and I were washing up the supper dishes, and as she talked, I slipped my pearl ring on her sudsy pinkie finger. We laughed, cried, and hugged as I told her that, when she was beginning to understand God’s love for her, she could mail it back.

Shortly thereafter, our closest friends here in Wisconsin announced that they were expecting. God had supernaturally knit our hearts together, and this child was as miraculous to me as my own, and just as loved.

Five months into the pregnancy, my friends lost their baby. Somehow, I knew God would turn it all for good—somehow I knew He would teach us all something from the pain—but I wasn’t sure what that lesson was, and I wasn’t sure I even wanted to learn.

It was around this time I received another card in the mail from my sister-in-law. I smiled at the timing, for I so needed to wear that pearled ring as a daily reminder of God’s unending love for me, even as I was, honesty, pretty angry with Him.

I read the card and slipped the pearl and gold ring back onto my pinkie finger.

Weeks passed, and I continued to watch my friends who had just lost their baby. Their love and trust of God never wavered, because they knew that God loved them perfectly, even while allowing them to walk through such gut-wrenching pain.

This is when I began to understand that the only way to eradicate fear is by falling so deeply in love with Jesus that there’s no room left in my heart for fear to exist. I remember the morning this simple and profound revelation struck my heart. I was shaking out the duvet over the bed as I thought, “Wow! I understand that you love me, God!”

This might not seem like much to those who do not struggle with this concept, but it was so startling to me that I felt this joy bubbling up inside my spirit. Something caught on my hand, and I looked down to see that my pearl pinkie ring had snagged on the material of the duvet, bending the thin gold pieces to the point that they broke.

At first, my heart constricted to see that broken piece of jewelry, which represented so much, and then I understood that this daily reminder was no longer needed, for God had tattooed that message of divine acceptance and love on my heart.

Do you understand God’s unconditional love for you?