Oysters begin life as floating eggs and sperm.  Warm weather and the subsequent heating up of the ocean, causes some oysters to spawn.  This spawning triggers a chain reaction in all the surrounding oysters causing them to spawn, and the water becomes a discoloured mass of the beginnings of baby oysters. The union of egg and sperm forms larvae and eventually these larvae land, often beside or on top of another oyster shell in an oyster bed or reef and there they adopt the very interesting name of a spat until they grow into a more mature oyster shell.

The first year of an oyster's life is spent as a male, and then as they become bigger and have more energy reserves, they release eggs as females.  The largest oysters can grow to be as large as a dinner plate and filter as much as five litres of water an hour. They have gills which filter plankton and nutrients/rubbish from the water via cilia action - little hairs that push the water through. They have a three chambered heart, two kidneys, reproductive organs, two very strong muscles that hold the shell together and an anus. Their waste is deposited in small packages or pellets that when decomposed, give off nitrogen gas.  They absorb oxygen like fish and have clear blood that carries oxygen and nutrients to all their delicate organs.  How amazing is the science of our creator God? 

A pearl is formed inside an oyster when it consumes an object it cannot eat or get rid of, usually a piece of sand.  To protect itself from the invading object, the oyster coats the irritating object with a substance called nacre, which is the same substance that lines the inside of the oyster shell.  Layer after layer form on the object until it becomes the solid, beautiful, reflective, colourful pearl that mankind has treasured for centuries. Quite a transformation!

Naturally formed pearls occur with a frequency of three to four pearls per thousand oysters. Today, oyster farmers have discovered how pearls are formed and so they place within each oyster shell a small particle of polished shell which the oyster takes and makes into a pearl. It takes five to six years before a cultured pearl is formed and the shapes of all pearls vary according to the shape of the initial object.

And you know it's just like that with us. God takes us where we are at, with all our challenges and rough bits, and through a beautiful gentle process, transforms us into His image, a beautiful, reflective, radiant person.  From a grain of sand, He makes a pearl.

I don't know where you are at today, but I do know where He will take you if you will stay close to Him, you will be pearled, made new and beautiful, from the inside out.