Working My Pearls Day 16: Pearls and Pigs

"Do not throw pearls before swine lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces," appears in the Bible, Matthew 7:6. While I have known the first part of that verse as long as I can remember, I never knew the second part of the sentence: lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. The first part of the verse is clear – do not waste things that are precious to you on people who do not find those same things precious. But the second part is so powerful. It immediately conjures mental images of a snarling, drooling wild boar chasing me down after I’ve thrown my pearls at him. Yikes! But it also creates such a clear image of what happens to us, our hearts, our souls, when we let others disrespect or devalue that which is important and precious to us. Physically or figuratively, we get ripped to pieces.

 Recognizing our own worth comes hard for many people, myself included. It's hard enough when you're just trying to remember it yourself. Harder yet is resisting the urge to throw away that worth in the hopes that the pig will understand. They won't. So wear your pearls.