"Which do you want—a pearl or a pain?"

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Maybe you’ve heard how pearls are made. You know, a pearl starts from a grain of sand which is a foreign object, an irritation, an annoyance, an unwelcome visitor in the oyster’s secure world. So the oyster surrounds this pain with secretions that coat the grain of sand, keeping it from irritating the rest of the oyster. The oyster takes this irritable, painful thing and makes something absolutely beautiful from it—a pearl that we harvest and string together and wear as necklaces and bracelets and set in rings. And it all starts because of a painful irritation.

I guess we all have painful irritations in life—at work, in our families, in the neighborhood. But God wants to take the painful situation you’re in and transform it into something beautiful—a pearl of life, a spiritual adventure.

So which do you want—a pearl or a pain? Let God have your pain and transform it. No, you probably can’t see the beauty God has in store for you while you’re in pain. So just trust God to know more about life than you do. Then listen to life and make a life, not just a living.

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