Shine Bright Like a Diamond

“A good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than diamonds.” Proverbs 31:10

Since I began my real walk with God, I’ve had a goal in mind of becoming a true “Proverbs 31 woman”. I want to be a woman with a gentle and quiet spirit. I want to be like Esther, like Deborah, like all the awesome and ridiculously confident in God women that fill the Bible. And while this journey of pursuing this godly character began with a longing for that gentle and quiet spirit, for taking on the special compassion and empathy that begins in a woman’s heart and for those softer but still such beautiful traits, in the most recent months of this never-ending journey, I’ve begun to hunt after some bolder traits of a Godly woman: the traits of strength, courage, and bravery. And for some reason, in my mind I thought these would come easily and without any trial. After all, if we as sweet and quaint godly women just sit in prayer for long enough, we will easily become an Esther, a Ruth, or a Miriam… or so I, and many other women I know, thought.

Misconceptions have flooded my mind and as God has filtered through them, He has unveiled a beautiful picture of what a godly woman should look like to me. And He has also been faithful to uncover the rocky pathway to becoming this woman….

We read in Proverbs 31:10 that “A good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than diamonds.” And I don’t know a Christian woman who doesn’t read this and think to herself, “Yeah, I want to be that kind of a good woman, I want to be considered worth far more than diamonds!” The longing to be this kind of woman is buried deep within our hearts. And as beautiful of a metaphor as this is- being compared to the beautiful stone all of us want to wear on our left hand ring finger someday (and that a lot of us envy when we see it on others’)- there is something that we forget to consider behind it: how diamonds are made.

Diamonds are formed deep within the mantle of the Earth- about 100 miles or so down. And they are not formed in a gentle and beautiful manner at all. They are formed through a process involving intense heat and crushing pressure. The diamonds that come to the surface of the earth have been brought there not on a cloud of glitter, but by a special kind of eruption that is quite violent. Upon this eruption, diamonds are carried from the upper mantle to the surface of earth where they wait to be collected and praised by men and women alike.

Intense heat and crushing pressure. That’s quite the process. Yet somehow through all of that intense and not so pleasant process, we get these beautiful gems that are worth thousands of dollars, and as we look at them resting on engaged womens’ fingers, we forget/don’t bother to acknowledge what had to happen in order for that stone to appear to us the way it does, in its full beauty and splendor.

But it’s not so different when we look at some Christian women in our lives, is it? We see these women who are awesome speakers, powerful worship leaders, really well-written authors, and we think to ourselves, “Wow. If only I could be the kind of woman she is.” But we fail to examine what those women had to go through to get to that point. And I can almost guarantee you that 99.9% of the time, it wasn’t through a hunky-dory process that they came to possess their great wisdom and strength.

We want to be women of God. And we don’t just want to be the silent and sweet women, we want to be bold and courageous and brave and strong. We want to be a good woman who is worth far more than diamonds. And yet when trial and risk comes our way, we resign. We cower in fear and think ourselves uncapable of what God has placed before us. We forget that beautiful diamonds are not formed through a beautiful process. They are formed through intsense pressure and uncomfortable heat, down in the dark where they are seemingly very alone. Not much unlike how character becomes embedded in our own lives. If a diamond didn’t go through the entirety of that laboring process, it would just be a rock. But because it sticks through the process, it comes to the surface as a beautiful gem.

          Courage, bravery, and strength are choices. And while I’m sure there are some exceptions, from what I’ve experienced of pursuing these traits, they do not feel so nice. Someone shared a quote with me the other day by a Christian leader who said, “If you’re looking for that warm, fuzzy feeling when it comes to walking out in faith, then pee your pants.” The process to obtaining these character traits is hard. Proverbs 31:10 doesn’t say “A good woman is really not too difficult to find, they're runnin' around everywhere”. It says, “A good woman is hard to find”. A good woman is hard to find, because being the kind of good woman Proverbs 31:10 talks about is hard. If it were easy, we'd all be Kim Walkers and Joyce Meyers by now! Yet, many women come to the diamond forming processes in their lives, and instead of stepping out and choosing courage and strength and bravery, they let their feelings and fears tell them it’s not worth the risk and in turn, they miss out on the chance to become true diamonds.

Nothing worth having in life comes without trials worth withstanding. Not trials worth running from or avoiding, worth withstanding. In Joshua 1:9, God commands us to be strong and courageous. He doesn’t ask us to pray really hard for courage and wait for the feeling of boldness to fall upon us. He tells us straight: “BE STRONG AND COURAGEOUS!” If you have found yourself at the mouth of a diamond forming process or even in the very midst of one, be strong and courageous. Take courage. Don’t wait for the feeling of it to come, take it. If you want to be one of those powerful women of God, know that it won’t come easily. If you want to be a beautiful diamond, be prepared for intense heat and crushing circumstances. But take hope in the fact that God is in every circumstance, including the ones below the earth’s surface, and there’s a beautiful worth waiting for you just upon the surface. Strength and bravery and courage as a woman will not come through prayer and hoping alone. Know that you have every capability in the world to be a good woman who is worth far more than diamonds, and God is sitting up on His throne rooting for you to become that woman. But the choice is ultimately yours.

Let me just encourage you to choose to become diamonds. Face the scary steps and challenges in your life with a courageous spirit and let them make you into a sturdy and beautiful diamond. Don't simply settle for being a rock.

In the words of Rihanna, "shine bright like a diamond".

Paige