Have you found any diamonds during your walk through 2020? Carl Jung said that where you fall there you’ll find gold. My twist on this concept is to say, “Where you walk through the valley of Covid-19, you’ll find diamonds – if you look that is.”
When life shifts, there’s lessons to be learned. No one alive has seen such a rapid shift in American society and culture. Who of right mind could have predicted that in the course of just a few months Americans would agree to wearing a mask everywhere, everyday while the survival rate for the virus was over 98% for all but the most elderly and sickly.
I keep finding diamonds that have formed as the pandemic months have yawned out. It takes a lot of pressure to make a diamond. They must be mined from rock, brought up and polished before their true brilliance can be appreciated. I have an imaginary tiara where I’m placing these diamonds.
The center piece – a fat, multi-carat diamond is peace about my daughter and my life, mostly. It didn’t come easy, and at times things said or done still cause me to stumble. I sure sinned in my hurt that had turned to anger, but I refused to stay there. I prayed and the Holy Spirit of God pulled me up out of that place.
Many of my diamonds are people I’ve met or become closer with.
I found a diamond in the sudden death of a lovely friend that was so full of life and love and beauty. Her death was like an electric shock. Wake Up. Time is short.
Time and effort aimed at refining a new skill has produced a diamond, and I think this focus kept me sane during the long months of isolation and uncertainty. There’s more to me left than I had imagined a couple years ago. Showing up and risking the humiliation of failure grows diamonds in the spirit.
Thanks to listening to and reading the work of Jordan Peterson, I saw the importance of “growing teeth,” as he puts it. You grow teeth so hopefully you won’t have to use them, but if you don’t have teeth to bare when people attempt to harm you, there’s just no way you’ll survive emotionally or even physically, according to Peterson.
How true that is, and oh, the scars I have from not understanding this principle. You are responsible for guarding your heart and self as a whole. Hopefully, you have others around you that will ward off many of the predators and disasters that come your way. But, ultimately, you make the choices about what gets in and goes out of your heart and mind.
Affirming my sense of responsibility for and right to myself because I have value and a purpose is a diamond forty years in the making.
I am here for a reason, and so are you. I regularly read Psalm 32, which in part says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you” (8 – 9).