fbpx
Created By Annie Jennings PR, National Publicist  
Like JenningsWire On Facebook

Shine Bright Like A Diamond


Diamonds are the most coveted gem on earth.

They are a girl’s best friend, a sign of commitment, royalty and wealth, and a thing of beauty. They don’t start off that way. Misshapen, unrefined, and unattractive, carbon has to undergo extreme temperatures and pressure for years. I am talking years of relentless crushing force, to mold into the gem we love.  For carbon to reach its full potential it has to be forged in fire, pressed to its limits.

Are we the same?

I thought I was living up to my full potential in 2006. I was a successful financial adviser, had a good marriage, three over-achieving, well-adjusted kids with annual vacations to paradise. I didn’t know I was just carbon. It took years of relentless extreme pressure and heat, failure, loss and grief to realize I wasn’t living the life I was meant to live. There had to be a better way, an easier way, I thought, until I reflected on the diamond and realized that sometimes our best selves emerge only after being forged in the fire, pressed to our limits.

I look to the diamond and relish the analogy.

Diamonds have the greatest hardness of any bulk material. And that is how I feel now, hard. Not hard in the sense of closed off, cynical, unbending. Hard as in having the confidence to handle pressure, disappointment, and loss. Hard, as in honed for my life purpose.  Hard, as in being unbreakable, a huge accomplishment after feeling broken for so long.

Then there is the light. They say diamonds have the highest ability to disperse light of different colors which creates its luster. I have luster now. Oh how I love having luster. Polished and clear, I can reflect my light and bring color to the world.

Light out of the darkness, what a miracle.

But, I know that I would not be able to shine bright like a diamond without the squeezing, compressing, pushing, pulling agony I have been through. I would still be in darkness and not even know it.

As you go through your moments of relentless pressure and agony, so intense you do not think you will survive, have faith that the diamond, the most precious gem on earth, is being cultivated in you, for you, to become you in all your brilliance, at your fullest potential, so you can be unbreakable and reflect your light for the world to see. Know that there isn’t a better way, an easier way. But, it will be all worth it just for you to shine bright like a diamond, out of the darkness you may not even know you were in.

Shine bright like a diamond – Rihanna

Read more posts by Darlene Butts. Darlene is a blogger for JenningsWire.