Don't Give Your Pearls to Pigs

I mailed a strand of old pearls to my niece a couple of weeks ago. My husband, after 16 years of marriage, realized that my only pearls were given to me in college by a boyfriend. He immediately went to a place of thinking there was some significance in the fact that they were still in my jewelry drawer. Not so. Pearls are classic, perfect with the little black dress, funerals, afternoon teas, and business meetings. They were a perfect accessory.

He didn't let it go. For my birthday this year, lo and behold, I received a beautiful double-stranded pearl necklace. No reason for me to keep the old pearls anymore, right? So I mailed them to my God-daughter - no note, nothing special - because they weren't special - but they were indeed beautiful, and I knew she would really like to have some real pearls in her wardrobe.

Time went by and I didn't hear from my niece. I finally texted her asking her if she got the pearls. No. She hadn't seen 'em yet.

So... they're lost or stolen. What are you going to do? Hopefully the person who took them will wear them in good health. I don't really care because those pearls didn't mean that much to me. That someone really appreciative ended up with them would be a great scenario...but I don't really care either way. For all I know, my niece's mail carrier put the strand of pearls on her pit bull named, Pearl.

The whole experience made me realize that the guy who gave me the pearls some 20-odd years ago (yes I am that old), was giving me something that had a lot of meaning for him. And at that time, and right now, the pearls meant no more to me than a great accent to an Anne Taylor suit.

I was the pig that this guy, long ago, should not have given these pearls to, because for him they were probably pearls of commitment perhaps; or pearls of significance at any rate - you know - because according to my husband: guys don't give pearls for no reason. And I just didn't get it. I did not speak the same language...was not on his wavelength.

Juxtapose that experience to this: (the real meaning of this, yes, biblical statement)

I have a friend who, well, we have great chemistry. She's the type of friend that if you haven't seen for a while, or talked to in a long time, you just feel like you have never been out of touch at all. We just sync in our thinking. Except one little detail....being...she is a non-believer. And, that's okay. She accepts me for who I am and I accept her and we still get along famously.

She has a lot of questions about life and death, faith, does God exist, and how-can-a-good-God-do-such-bad-things, etc. But nothing I tell her sticks. In fact, if she asks me something about God, Jesus, or the Bible, I tell her very boldly....what the biblical view is. But then I don't hear from her for a few weeks. All the sudden she has a new best friend. Then, 6 months later, we are back to hanging out together, and it starts all over again.

And I give her all I have. I care about her and don't want to preach to her. That's not what we are about. I confide in her and she in me. And when she asks, I tell her my personal experience with Jesus - you know really personal stuff. And there she goes. Gone again, and again. We have had about...let's see... maybe an 8 year cycle of all this.

I finally realized - because I am slow, maybe - my friend doesn't speak the same language...doesn't have the same faith...So she wasn't hearing me. She was privately fearing me instead. Don't get me wrong...not the kind of fear like a monster chasing you. Subtle fear as in when someone tells you a little too much and you say, "Uh, T-M-I. I didn't need to know that much!" And it creates a cushion around whatever the subject was. That cushion is a layer rooted in fear and it protects....insulates.

So I don't know why she asks me questions about God and His role in marriage, fidelity, war, disease. I just answer according to my particular filters - its all I have. But, I finally get that while I have been confiding my faith and beliefs, I have been giving her my proverbial pearls all these years. And it's been a foreign language to her. She just doesn't hear it, has no appreciation for it - so why continue?

So, I stopped....giving her my pearls...Because you don't give your pearls to pigs (Mt 7:6). They simply don't understand the value - intrinsic or otherwise.

Just like that guy giving me a strand of pearls...and my subsequent lack of care in sending them off to who knows where; I have been giving my friend my heart-spoken understanding of life issues assuming that some sort of commitment or value or growth or substantial would follow...maybe our relationship would deepen/thicken; I don't know what I expected, but I do know I expected something. But that's not fair to her.

My friend just doesn't speak the same language...isn't on the same wavelength...doesn't have the antennae for it. My pearls for her are just a conversational adornment: not because she is callous or anything, because she just has different values from me. That's it.

No big deal. We are good friends. I just know now, finally, that what I give to the relationship, may end up around the neck of a pit bull named Pearl.