Make something good from your pain

Pain can result in beauty.

When an external irritant invades the oyster’s shell, the oyster deals with the pain by coating the irritant with a calcium-like substance called nacre. Over time, that becomes the pearl.

Instead of giving up and giving in to the pain, the oyster fights back, and in the process, creates something beautiful. It makes something good out of something bad. 

In a way, the oyster is saying, “Give me lemons, I’ll make lemonade.”

What’s our response to the external irritants of our lives? How many pearls are we churning out?

We don’t have to be happy all the time, but it doesn’t hurt to try, does it? We can ignore the pain festering underneath our shells, but the pain will eventually get the best of us, and, soon, we’d start to act as cranky as we feel.

No, the only way to deal with the pain inside us is to heal it, coat it, transform it into something else, something beautiful, something we can live with.

Luster

One of the things which determines a pearl’s value is its luster — the shine which beams out from within the pearl. The deeper the luster, the deeper the shine from within, the more valuable the pearl.

“A good pearl has a delicate luster. The layering of nacre is translucent and allows light to pass through, which creates the luster and gives the faint rainbow color called iridescence.” Pearls of Grace

Indeed, the deeper the luster shining from within us, the greater our worth.

Without pain, without healing, there can be no pearls. Our greatest joys may indeed be born from our greatest pains. Somehow know this makes the pain bearable, even livable.