Diamonds Aren't Forever

While shopping for my engagement ring, I learned what's really valuable.
by Liz Curtis Higgs

Each March when our anniversary rolls around, Bill and I curl up on the couch and watch the videotape of our wedding ceremony, shaking our heads at the two vaguely familiar young people grinning their way down the aisle. I'm just grateful a camera crew wasn't around to capture every moment during our four-month engagement.

Like the night Bill and I went shopping for my engagement ring soon after he popped the question. No way do I want to see that on instant replay.

The jeweler watched as we touched the loose diamonds she'd strewn across a square of blue velvet. "What's your budget?" she asked, her tone hopeful.

Bill gulped. "Four hundred." On a college teacher's salary it was all he could afford, but I still winced. Four hundred dollars meant a very small diamond. Teeny tiny. Except for the flaws. Those would be huge.

The jeweler merely smiled and guided us to the other end of the counter. "I think we can find something here that will suit you." Out came another velvet square, but the diamond chips she placed on it nearly disappeared in the nap of the fabric.

As Bill listened to the jeweler explain carat weight, my gaze drifted back to the larger stones. Their facets caught the bright store lights, beckoning me.

Diamonds are forever. Store-bought eternity looked good that wintry evening.

We finally chose a pretty but petite gemstone. Only a jeweler would notice the flaw. As small as it was, the diamond still twinkled nicely.

Bill touched my elbow. "Make sure you're happy with it, Liz, while I look around."

Happy? I was happy with him, no doubts there. Settling for a diminutive diamond was another story. As a single woman I'd grown accustomed to buying whatever I wanted and worrying about how things got paid for later. My frugal fiancé, though, was a cash-and-carry kind of guy.

But he did say he wanted me to be happy . . .

Once he was out of earshot, I waved the woman closer. "Can I look at the bigger stones again?" Big mistake. The stones were larger, but so was the price tag.

Then I thought of a plan as brilliant as the square-cut beauty I'd chosen. "I'd really like this one," I said softly. "Suppose Bill gave you a check for $400 and I gave you a check for the difference?"

She eyed me evenly. "Are you sure that's how you want to begin your marriage?"

Oh. Heat flew to my cheeks. "Maybe not." I turned away in embarrassment, ashamed to have my faults spread out like so many sharp stones on display. Greed, deceit, covetousness, pride—and those were just the smaller ones. …

I gazed at Bill across the room, a man who deserved a woman he could trust with his heart and his wallet, and silently begged his forgiveness—and God's. Thankfully, I'd been handed something more valuable than diamonds: a second chance.

When I turned back to the jeweler, we were both smiling. "You're absolutely right," I assured her. "The smaller stone will be perfect."

And so it was. Perfectly lovely. I flashed it about as though it were the Hope Diamond, because for me, that's what it represented: my hopes for a marriage built on honesty, not deception, and a forever kind of love that would outshine any diamond.

For our tenth anniversary, Bill—bless his generous heart!—replaced my tiny stone with a whole band of twinkling beauties. If there are flaws, I haven't noticed them. …

Liz Curtis Higgs, author of 20 books, including her third novel, Thorn in My Heart (WaterBrook Press), lives with her family in Kentucky.

I felt a confession coming on. "Our family went on vacation last month, and I forgot my curling iron."

"Did you use pinking shears instead?" she asked.

"It only looks that way," I sighed. "I used a round brush Bill found at the local drugstore. Something called a Swirly Curly or a Twirly Whirly or—"

"Let me guess," Carol said, parking her hands on her hips. "You rolled your hair with it like it was a curling iron, right?

Gulp.

"Liz, you're lucky you didn't walk in here with the thing still dangling from your head. Those round brushes are strictly for people who know what they're doing."

If only I'd known that a month earlier.

That fateful morning, my teenage daughter, Lilly, and I busied ourselves getting ready for a day of sightseeing. I stretched out a hank of hair and pulled the round brush straight through it, scalp to split ends. Then I smoothed those ends around the bristles and rolled the brush all the way to the roots. Simple enough.

After half a minute, I turned my wrist to unwind my hair. Nothing. I gripped harder and turned the brush with more authority. Nada. A small knot of apprehension growing inside me, I yanked a bit harder. Ouch! A tear sprang to my eye.

"Lilly," I called out. "Could you come help me?"

My daughter bounded into our shared bath and assessed the problem with a raised eyebrow. "I'm not brushing your hair, Mom."

"Help me unbrush it." I grimaced as I pulled on the pink plastic handle. "It's stuck."

Even with Lilly's nimble fingers and my trembling ones, the brush didn't budge. Frustration soon gave way to desperation. "Never mind!" I shrieked. "I'll do it myself!" What I did was make it worse, twisting and turning the brush until it was hopelessly tangled in my fine hair. "It won't come out!" I wailed. "It will never come out!"

The sight of a grown woman with a bright pink brush attached to her scalp is pretty funny. I should have been howling with laughter. Instead I was howling, period. Screaming like a banshee. Stamping around the hotel room, waving my arms, hollering for Lilly to run down to the front desk and get me a pair of scissors.

I'm sorry, girlfriend. It's just the ugly truth of it.

A few minutes later, poor Lilly, frightened by her hysterical mother, handed me the scissors and watched in horror as I hacked at my hair with tears and gnashing of teeth. The brush and a chunk of hair went in the trash, and our family vacation nearly went there, too.

It took an hour for me to calm down, and longer for Lilly, who has since mentioned that horrid morning a dozen times. My dear husband, Bill, felt guilty all day, thinking he'd picked the wrong brush (or the wrong wife). And our mellow teenage sonwalked ten paces behind us, pretending he didn't know the woman with the red-rimmed eyes and punk haircut.

A delightful day ruined . . . for what? A sparse handful of hair nobody missed but me. And a $3.95 brush that was history.

Rather than teaching my teens how mature adults handle life's tiny challenges, I showed them how a grown woman can behave like a toddler. Arrgh.

What's a bad girl to do? I confessed to my family. Confessed I was an idiot to my hairdresser, Carol.

Here‘s a sobering lesson: If I learn to brush off life's little problems before they get hopelessly entangled, I just might avoid living a life filled with apologies and bad hair days.

Liz Curtis Higgs is the author of 20 books, including her third novel, Thorn in My Heart (WaterBrook Press). She lives with her family and a wide-toothed comb in Kentucky.

A Cheerful Giver
My son taught me a needed lesson about generosity.
by Liz Curtis Higgs

Tis the season to be generous. to give gifts to friends, donate goods to needy families, and write checks for worthy causes. Imagine my dismay when our 16-year-old son showed me I wasn't nearly as ho-ho-happy about giving as I claimed to be.

My lesson in humility began one Tuesday afternoon. Our son, Matt, sat perched on the steps of a downtown office building waiting for his father to pick him up after his first driver training class. A man in shabby clothes ambled along, asking for money, supposedly to pay for having a tire changed at a nearby garage.

When Matt told me this story later, I felt my skin grow hot. Yeah, right … he needed money for a tire. More like for drugs. Or a cheap bottle of wine.

"The man said he needed $17," Matt explained. "So I gave him $10."

"Ten dollars?!" I fumed. How dare this panhandler talk my son out of his hard-earned money? "Honey, why would you do such a thing?"

"Because it felt good to help somebody, Mom."

Ouch. Still, I felt Matt didn't understand the situation, didn't get the Big Picture about how the world worked. "A dollar would have been plenty, Matt. Just to show him you cared."

Just to get rid of him. That's what I meant, even if I didn't say it.

Matt's brow drew into a knot. "But wouldn't ten dollars show him I cared even more?"

Ouch again. Adult logic goes by the wayside when faced with a teenager determined to do the right thing.

…Why wasn't I congratulating my son for being generous instead of chastising him for being taken advantage of by a stranger on the street?

Before I could sort out my feelings, Matt confessed, "He asked me if I could spare any more, so I gave him another three dollars."

"What?!" I threw my arms in the air, exasperated. "Son, you don't have to keep giving people money just because they ask for it! What that man did amounts to polite robbery."

"But he didn't rob me, Mom. I gave it willingly," Matt reminded me. "And it was my money. I just wanted to be kind."

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Matt had given generously. And I called him gullible. Matt had given joyfully. And I robbed his joy….

Matt wasn't at all reluctant. But I was. He said yes to this man without feeling coerced. I would have said no and blamed the man for being pushy. My son was cheerful. I was infuriated.

Here's the saddest truth of all: I gladly write a check each December to a Christian mission for the homeless not far from the very spot where Matt did his kind deed. Sure, I'm willing to help the needy. But only if I control the amount and how it's spent. And only if I can drop my money in the mail, not press it into a grimy hand.

It's embarrassing when your children teach you by example. The only thing worse is refusing to be taught.

"Cheerful giving" really means to give without judgment. To give without hesitation. To give from the heart.

The Unofficial Motherhood Entrance Exam
by Becky Freeman

While we all know children are a gift, we also know that gift isn't for the faint of heart or weak of will. Want to know whether you have what it takes to be a mommy? Find out here!

Toy Test
Obtain a 55-gallon box of LEGOs (or you may substitute roofing tacks). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try walking to the bathroom or kitchen. Don't scream, because this would wake a sleeping child at night.

Night Test
Fill a small cloth bag with 8 to 12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. Waltz and hum with the bag from 3 p.m. until 9 P.M. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10 P.M. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you've ever heard. Then make up about a dozen more and sing these, too—until 4 A.M. Set alarm for 5 A.M. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for five years. Look cheerful.

Dressing Test
Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag, making sure all its arms stay inside.

Physical Test
Obtain a large beanbag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for nine months. Now remove ten beans. Try not to notice your closet full of clothes; you won't be wearing them for a while.

Feeding Test
Fill a large plastic milk jug halfway with water. Suspend it from the ceiling with a cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal into the mouth of the jug while pretending to be an airplane. Then dump the contents of the jug on the floor.

Grocery Store Test
Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you when you shop for groceries. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.

Mess Test
Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.

Final Assignment
Find a couple who already has small children. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training, and the child's table manners. Emphasize that they never should allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It'll be the last time you'll have all the answers.

Excerpted from Coffee Cup Friendship & Cheesecake Fun. ©2001 by Becky Freeman. Used with permission of Harvest House Publishers.

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 757