Psalm 34:18
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God….. we enter through the gate of brokenness, needing comfort and in meekness…. Not by our accomplishments and praise of people.
Revelation 21:21 reminds us:
“The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.”
One of the issues we revisit regularly in recovery and discipling is the matter of suffering- why it is present, how we face it, consecrating it to God for His redemptive work through it, etc. I had written in my weblog in 2018 the fact that, in the New Jerusalem, the Heavenly City, each of the 12 city gates is a single large pearl. As I reflected on the means by which a pearl is created it seemed to me appropriate that the gates should be pearls. The mollusks that produce pearls do so over a 3-6 year period of repeatedly coating an irritating foreign object so that it eventually becomes a beautiful, translucent gem, greatly prized.
Christ speaks of the ‘pearl of great price’, which is worth selling everything else to possess. Certainly, he experienced great suffering out of which God brought great blessing. Christ’s suffering that brought about salvation for all the world is truly the pearl of great price, the gift God offers to us through relationship with Christ. Twelve is a biblical number of completeness of the whole- 12 tribes, for example. The significance of twelve gates into heaven, each bearing a large pearl, suggests to me that when our suffering here on earth is wholly completed, according to God’s plan and purpose, we enter the gates into heaven, suffering having been a part of our earthly life that will no longer be a part of our lives in eternity.
I have experienced long term irritants that could not be born without them having been transformed. But there is a blessing in such thorns of the flesh…. beautiful gems that come out of irritating, even painful and devastating circumstances. I certainly believe that my intimacy with the Lord has come as a result of suffering that led to trusting in Him more and finding comfort in Him. So I can readily see how the pearl that comes from patient suffering while trusting in God is a gateway to kingdom living.
Helping other people come to that realization is often difficult, especially while they are in the throes of their pain. If we understand and accept this reality early in our Christian lives, it makes joy even in the midst of suffering actually possible.
Bill had given me a lovely set of high quality pearl jewelry from a well known jeweler in Montgomery in about 1988. We had been married about 16 years. Pearls are the traditional 30th anniversary gift. We actually renewed our wedding vows on the 30th anniversay of our marriage, 7-22-2002. We had emerged from a very difficult season of our marriage that had begun during the year of our 25th anniversary and had not been in a position of celebrating our anniversary that year. But God knew that by our 30th anniversary the pain of that time would have been “smoothed over” by the application of his transforming grace upon our lives together. Here’s a family photo taken at that ceremony and the pearls Bill had given me years before.
