Pearl of Great Price

"Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more." (D&C 58:42). When looking at the radiant beauty of a pearl, it can be hard to remember that it started out as an ugly grain of sand. When we sin, and then we repent, the Lord wraps us up in His warmth and light and love. He takes that small bit of ugliness and turns it into a pearl of great price. The Lord wants us to keep that pearl, not to remember our mistake, but to remember His goodness. We are often tempted to crack open the pearl and dig the bit of dirt out of the embrace of the beautiful pearl. We look at the pearl and can't see the light and the beauty but only the dirt. We set aside our Savior as naught, and trample His atoning sacrifice under foot, and deny His love and His light and His goodness. We don't believe ourselves worthy of a pearl of any price. We are dirty and the dirt belongs to us and we don't want anyone, but especially not ourselves, to forget the dirty things we've done, or to wrap it up in shining layers of forgiveness and mercy and grace. But God did not make us to be small, insignificant, ugly, irritating pieces of dirt. "Yet I will own them, and they shall be mine in that day when I shall come to make up my jewels." (D&C 101:3). God intends to make glittering jewels, shimmering pearls of great price out of us. He has paid too high a price to replace the memory of our sins with the brilliant future of our triumphs. God would never take away our experiences from us, but He wants to transform our painful memories into shining potential opportunities. God wants us to look at the pearl and see the beauty instead of trying to peel back His grace and get back to the ugly past. Through His Atonement, Christ gives us forgiveness for our sins, future for our past, faith for our fears, hope for our despair, "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that [we] might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified." (Isaiah 61:3). He takes our piece of dirt and gives us a pearl, and He does not want us to crack it open. He does not want us to remember or focus on the dirt, but to fill our souls with the beauty of the pearl and rejoice in the light and comfort and possibilities that brighten our future.