A Different Person

I have a diamond. Just one. It sits alone on top of the gold of my engagement ring.

The other day, I turned my diamond, this way and that, in a stream of sunlight, watching it sparkle. Then I said, “Imogen, have I ever told you the story of my engagement ring?”

“Dad and I got engaged at the end of high school before we went to uni,” I said, starting the tale. “But before we could get engaged, we needed a ring.”

My love and I roamed the shopping centre, visiting all the jewellers, searching for the perfect ring. When we told the shop assistants our ring-buying budget, they raised their eyebrows, pulled out a couple of ring-filled velvet-lined trays, placing them on the counter in front of us.

“I tried a few rings on, and I was so disappointed,” I told Imogen. “Each ring’s diamond was no more than a speck in its setting. I didn’t want an extravagant ring, but I did want to see the diamond. An engagement ring has to last a lifetime. It’s not the sort of thing that you upgrade when you have more money.”

Andy and I felt very discouraged. Perhaps we’d have to wait until our ring-buying budget grew. Postpone our engagement. Then one day, when we were wandering through the shopping centre, we saw a jewellery shop we hadn’t visited before. We peered through the window and there was my ring. It was very simple. Just one diamond. One sparkly diamond that I didn’t have to screw up my eyes to see. It must have been waiting for me.

”I remember looking at my ring while sitting on a tiny train station platform halfway across Wales,” I said to Imogen. “ I was on my way back to uni. While I was waiting for my connecting train, I rotated the diamond in the sunshine and enjoyed all the colours that leapt from its centre.”

It’s funny how we can remember seemingly unimportant moments of our lives.

I stopped my story. I’d noticed the cats splattered on the carpet in front of us, soaking up the early winter sunshine. I pulled myself off the sofa and joined the cats in their warm patch and held out my hand. I rotated my diamond. And the light bent. It refracted into a spectrum of rainbow colours.

And I thought:

The same hand.

The same ring.

The same colours.

Just a different time and place.

A lot has changed since I was that twenty-year-old university student sitting on a sunny train station platform halfway across Wales. At that time, I was hoping to have a spectacular future. When I graduated, I was going to marry my love. I imagined the usual things that I thought would bring me happiness: a home of our own, a few children. But I didn’t see further than that.

I had no idea that I’d love God who has always loved me.

My diamond continues to sparkle.

The same ring.

The same hand.

But I’m a different person.