Beautiful Pearls

The other day my parents went to Pennsylvania to do some shopping and to get away and spend some time together. While they were out they went to this neat little family restaurant in Quarryville called C.R. Lapp's.
My dad loves oysters. At Thanksgiving one of his favorite things to eat is oyster stuffing. At this restaurant he discovered some of the best oyster chowder. (You'll have to take his word for it - I can't stand oysters!) While enjoying his chowder he found a pearl. Not a very big one, but it was a genuine pearl that came from one of the misfortunate oysters that ended up in his chowder.
My mom was telling my daughter Christiana about this incident, and I began to see a wonderful example to pass on to my children. The neat thing about pearls is how they come to be beautiful. An oyster gets a tiny foreign object like a grain of sand inside of it's shell. This sand is a constant irritation to the oyster but instead of getting rid of the it, the oyster begins to coat it with the substance that makes this grain of sand into a pearl. The oyster learns to except this sand for what it is and makes it into a valuable asset to itself. A beautiful pearl!
My kids have a little trouble getting along with each other. They are constantly irritating each other and looking for ways to annoy one another. They need to learn to see each other as an oyster sees a grain of sand. They need to learn to accept each other for who they are. The very thing that annoys them now, may one day turn into a beautiful quality in that person. For example: stubbornness may one day turn into perseverance. A bossy sibling may turn into a good leader.
This is a good lesson for us moms. We shouldn't always be correcting our kids for the things they do wrong. We need to look for the good qualities that we see in them and encourage them in these areas. One day they might just be a beautiful pearl!