We were sitting in a sparsely patronized restaurant, sharing a long overdue meal. I taught her two years ago, when she was an uncharacteristically chatty freshman who could easily take one breath and draw it out for at least five or six sentences. Not much has changed, except for her more mature look and her upperclassman status.
The light reflected something shiny peering out from the top of her collar. I intended to glance at it just briefly, until I noticed that its shape and color flung my mind from China to my Georgia hometown.
Why was its prismatic color and simple shape so familiar?
And then my memory retrieved a vignette from this past summer: a bookstore – not even one I frequent all that often – and a glass case that contains handmade jewelry designed by a local woman who I always thought was one of the most effortlessly beautiful ladies I had ever met. I used to babysit her three children. We would spend hours lost in imagination, they in their fuzzy footed pajamas curled up inside the crooks of my arms and me feeling the youthful twitches of maternal joy and contentment over reading, “The Little Prince.” They are now teenagers, and their mother runs a successful faith-based jewelry business. I was looking at all the pieces she has displayed at the bookstore and noticed one particular pendant that I thought was delicate and elegant. It was Swarovski crystal, cut as a faceted hollowed square with one corner being fastened to a chain by a silver clasp.
Nine months later, that same style pendant was suspended right below the collarbone of my former student.
“Your necklace reminds me of someone,” I said.
“Oh really? A friend gave it to me several years ago. I didn't even know what Swarovski was at that time,” she grinned.
Some moments later, our dialogue hovered over the topic of faith. She said many times that she believes in a “great power,” but never any specific title beyond that. I kept my contribution simple. I spoke the name of the One I love and serve and said that He is different from all others because He made Himself the very sacrifice that is demanded.
She tilted her head while her eyes followed an invisible line of thought. I needed an example. I quietly asked for something that would make sense to her. A parable moment.
Suddenly, her pendant caught the light again, and it all came together.
“It's kind of like your pendant. If you see it on its own, you may think it's quite pretty. But when you compare it to knockoff pendants, that's when the difference is really clear. That's when your understanding of its value makes it even more beautiful. Same with Him. All others are knockoffs and cheap imitations, and they make His gift even more priceless.”
Being from a country in which the entire retail landscape is dominated by knockoffs, she eagerly nodded in complete understanding.
I hope one day that understanding makes its way to her heart -- a turn which would cement a Swarovski pendant and Deborah Lynn Jewelry and The Lamb's Well Bookstore among the pages of eternal Chinese history.
