The Suffering Pearl

The American Association of Christian Counselors posted the following:

“The Pearl...

Ugly, with a hard crusty shell. They just lay around in murky shallows doing nothing. Virtually useless. Certainly never able to produce anything of value and worth. They are called oysters. Inside of these crusty creatures a miracle often occurs. Somehow a foreign substance slips into the oyster between the mantle and the shell. It’s kind of like the oyster getting a splinter. It is painful. However, upon penetrating the outer shell, the “splinter” encounters a natural phenomenon. The oyster’s natural reaction is to begin to cover the irritant with layer after layer of a hard, smooth, colorful substance. Over time, a beautiful, valuable pearl has been created.

Maybe something incredibly painful is stuck in your heart. It is there. You feel it every moment of every day. It won’t go away. It seems as if the pain never lets up. You wonder if relief will ever come. The Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 8:28… “We know that for those who love God, ALL things work together for good…” The “splinters” of life can be used by God to make us look more like Jesus (vs29). Verse 31 encourages us by declaring… if God is for us, who can be against us?
Whatever it is that has wounded you…take it to Him in prayer. Let him cover it with His Grace…layer by layer. Hang in there with Him through the healing process, and that pain will eventually be transformed into a valuable, beautiful pearl.

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for Righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.” Matthew 5:6 “

(My thoughts on that…..) Our natural and understandable instinct when hardship comes is desiring for it to end and leave us ASAP! In counseling we sometimes get caught up in the client’s desire for the pain to end immediately. But often God has a work to do through the pain. It may be pruning sin and selfishness from us. It may be deepening our faith. It may be softening our hearts towards others. It is always in some way making us more like Jesus.

Suffering is not pleasant and we should not seek it. But sometimes we have to endure it in faith and let God work in it and through it. As we minister in the lives of others, without glibness or self-righteousness, we often need to sit with them in their suffering, not offering easy answers or quick fixes. Pray for the Holy Spirit to give you sensitivity to Him AND to your suffering friend/parishioner/client. You may need to gently ask some questions that lead them to grow through the pain. Be sure your relationship gives you the right to ask those questions and do it with humility.

Romans 5:3-5 (ESV) “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

And finally, James 1:2-4 from The Message, " 2 -4Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. "