Recently while vacationing with my family in Colorado, I
wore thick gloves, and kept my hands in my pockets a lot. Such is necessary when the temperature is two degrees below zero! On one particularly
snowy, blustery, cold day, I pulled off my gloves in the car, and noticed
something was missing. While everyone
else in my family proudly wears an Aggie ring on their right hand, my ring
finger usually bears something equally special to me – my mother’s ring.
About twelve years ago, my family decided to get a mother’s
ring for me for Mother’s Day, and they included me in that endeavor. I remember how all five of us went to the jewelry
store, and how Jeff and the kids helped me pick out the perfect ring. We decided to make it a family ring instead
of just a mother’s ring by including all five of our birthstones. They also helped me place the stones – three
sapphires for Jeff and the girls’ September birthdays, an aquamarine for my
March birthday, and a single amethyst for Caleb’s February date. I love that ring. Not for the gold or the precious stones, but
for what it represents – five people, knit together through blood and a lot of
love. Those three sapphires and the
amethyst represent the people I love most in this world. Wearing it helps me remember how greatly
blessed I am to be the wife and mother – the aquamarine stone – in this family.
But that day in Colorado, as I pulled my hand out of my pocket, I
noticed that the sapphire on one end of the ring – Jeff’s stone – was gone. One of the prongs had broken off. The stone itself was very small, and I
figured it was gone forever, but I decided it would be worth the effort to
explore my pocket thoroughly anyway – and to my great surprise and joy, there
in the bottom corner of my pocket, I felt the small bump of that precious
stone.
When we returned home, I took my ring and the misplaced stone to our
local jeweler to have it repaired. And in
the course of my conversation with the jeweler, she strongly recommended that I
also allow them to replace the prongs of my engagement ring which hold a solitary diamond. I have worn that ring
every single day for the last 28 years, and the prongs were becoming quite fatigued. To me, it was worth the extra money to have
that ring repaired as well. Again, not
so much because of the precious stone, but for what that stone represents –
Jeff’s proposal, my acceptance, and the 28 ensuing years of life with that very special man.
As passionate as I am about those rings which symbolize priceless relationships, I am even more passionate about the people they represent. And in considering those thoughts, I couldn't help but be reminded of Luke 15 - the "lost" chapter. In those parables - from the lost sheep, to the lost coin, to the lost son - Jesus impresses upon His audience how precious those lost ones are to the Shepherd, the woman, and the Father. They will stop at nothing to find that which is lost - - hence, our Father will stop at nothing to have us in a right relationship with Him. What a beautiful thought. And shouldn't I feel the same way about the people I encounter every single day who are lost in sin? We talked about that in our Ladies' Bible class a few weeks ago, and I need to do better.
For the week that my rings were being repaired by the jeweler, my fingers felt naked, as I missed the familiarity of seeing those representations of love and commitment on my hands. But I am thankful for the reminder that it isn't about the emblems, but about the actual people. And I am thankful for the realization that I need to be more concerned about finding lost souls, than I was about finding a lost sapphire. Luke 19:10 tells us that "the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost." As a child of the King, may I be more zealous to help Him in that endeavor.
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