“With this ring, I thee wed.”
Those were the last words I heard before the wedding ring I wear now was gracefully slipped over my finger. For 23 years, I have worn the ring, a reminder of a promise we made to love, honor, and cherish each other for as long as we both shall live.
However long that may be.
They say, “Diamonds are forever.”
This slogan has been around for as long as I can remember. It’s been around as long as your parents, their parents, and even their parents can remember. In 1902, DeBeers, which controlled 90 percent of the world’s diamond production, came up with this catchy phrase and marketed the diamond as the only way to express everlasting love.
Did you know, though, that diamonds are NOT forever?
(Nerd Alert: Science lesson to follow.)
Diamond’s sibling structure, graphite (of #2 pencil fame), is actually the more stable chemical structure and so all diamonds are slowly turning into graphite. This will, of course, take billions of years, but more alarming is that when diamonds are burned they simply disappear. When a diamond gets red hot, it leaves no trace of anything. Nothing at all. It just vanishes into thin air. Poof! Rubies and sapphires are impervious to all kinds of heat. They won’t burn. But diamonds—diamonds have no such stamina.
I don’t think I’ll ever look at a diamond the same way again.
The word diamond is derived from the Greek adamas, which means “unconquerable” or “indestructible.” It is comprised of pure carbon, the building block of all life.
My last name is Adams, which sounds a lot like adamas. Did my ancestors know the diamond as “unconquerable” and “indestructible?” Maybe. There’s lots of Adamses around here to prove we’ve been around for a long time and don’t plan to go anywhere anytime soon.
I think we just found out, though, that can be altered.
And all it takes is a little FIRE.
For who among us has not been burned in our lifetime?
But how did diamonds get here? Didn’t it have something to do with heat?
Yes!
Diamonds are formed deep within the earth surface under intense heat and pressure. It takes billions of years. Volcanic eruptions underground pushed them up toward the earth’s surface, where they became buried in cooled magma, and then mined for our enjoyment.
But did you know that a diamond can be destroyed in just a few seconds?
If you heat a diamond to 700 degrees Celsius in open air it will burn. If you place a super heated diamond into a container of liquid oxygen it will turn into carbon dioxide, a gas you cannot see with the naked eye. Not only that, but despite a diamond’s hardness (which is simply its ability to cut other objects), a diamond can be smashed to bits with one well-placed blow.
Humans aren’t all that different from diamonds. We, too, are made up of mostly carbon. Tough on the outside, perhaps even showing off flashes of brilliance, but fragile just the same. Personal failures, disappointments, heartbreaks, and regrets all have the potential to act like fire and destroy us in an instant.
Diamonds can only be scratched by other diamonds. They are rare. They are valuable. They are among the hardest minerals found on earth, but they are also fragile.
They can be fractured in one blow.
You may have found yourself in a situation where you felt like you were on the verge of breaking into pieces.
I’m left to ponder whether or not this information is comforting or depressing. Mostly I’m wondering how I even find myself contemplating such things. What we have in common with the natural world is astonishing to me. I am filled with awe at the magnitude and beauty of it all. As I sit here writing this, I can look down and see my left hand where several diamonds given to me by my true love rest. I take great care of these gems because I know how much he sacrificed to give them to me. They have value, not because of their size or brilliance, but because they are a symbol of his love for me, his promise to honor and cherish me forever.
Whether of not the diamonds last for all eternity, I don’t care. I do, however, care about the human soul.
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed.”
Apparently some things really do last forever.