Isn't life the oddest thing?  So many changes, good and bad, around every corner.  Things that happen to shape us and mold us to what we need to be.  Some things are terrible beyond words and description, and others a glorious wonderful experience. 

I am reminded of a black lump of rock, unimpressive, just sitting in the ground.  Then the pressures around it begins to take hold, with heat and weight, shaping it  and molding it into something else. I wonder if that black lump of rock could speak, what it would say?  If it could choose, would it give up? Would it just walk away from all the pressure? But it can't choose of course, it's just a lump of black rock. 

The pressure gets unbearable at times, I'm sure, if it wasn't merely a rock.  It gets pushed and squeezed beyond its control and it has no choice other than to just bear it. 

But what a thing happens to that rock!  As time goes by, it is changed, shaped, and transformed.  After awhile, it begins to take on a new shape, a new appearance, a new structure.  It becomes one of the most beautiful things in the world.  All of that pressure and heat it endures purifies it and makes it a diamond.  The once black lump of rock is now clear, pristine, and stronger than almost any substance on the earth.  Its clarity and sparkle will catch many an eye. Hard to imagine how it started out as a simple black lump of carbon. Unimpressive, unnoticed.  The pressure and heat all around it shaped it into something beautiful, and it will never be the same.

I like to think of the journey of life being the same. Sometimes there is pressure and heat from all around that seems unbearable.  You think you can't bear anymore, but you can.  You think you won't get through it, but you do. 

You may not realize it at the time, but these trials and pressures are shaping you, molding you, into a beautiful rare gem.  You are becoming something wonderful, even if you aren't aware of it.