The Pearl of Summer Light

The Pearl of Summer Light

Jonathan stood barefoot on warm Tasmanian sand, watching December waves catch the late evening sun at the nearby beach in the suburb where he lived. The beach was nearly empty; most families had gone home for Christmas dinner. He'd spent eighteen months sending out applications, each rejection a small stone added to the weight in his chest. Aid work in conflict zones had been chaotic, but at least it had purpose. Now, back home with a kind of displaced family, he felt more confined than he ever had dodging checkpoints in uncertain places like Haiti, Cox’s Bazar or somewhere in central Asia.

His phone buzzed. Another automated rejection. He slipped it back into his pocket and stared at the horizon where the Tasman Sea met the Pacific.

"You're the pastry man!" A voice called out.

He turned to find Mele, an Islander woman from his apartment complex, approaching with her two children. Her smile was genuine, despite the exhaustion evident in her eyes.

"Guilty," Jonathan managed a smile. "You caught me hiding from my own Christmas snack."

"We're doing the same," she laughed. "Needed air before the afternoon heat gets worse. The kids wanted to see if Santa might arrive by boat instead of sleigh here."

Her daughter, maybe seven, tugged at her mother's hand. "Mama, is he the one who made those little cream things?"

"Éclairs," Jonathan said softly. "I left some by your door last week."

Mele's expression shifted to something tender. "You did?? And you have no idea what that meant. We'd just gotten news my husband's work visa extension was denied. The kids were crying, I was trying not to. Then we found that box with a note that just said, 'From a neighbor who cares.' We sat on the floor and ate every single one."

Jonathan felt his throat tighten. He'd been making pastries for weeks-croissants, cannoli, pain au chocolate, anything to fill the empty hours. Dropping them at doors was easier than facing his own failure.

"I'm glad they helped," he said quietly.

"Helped?" Mele shook her head. "Jonathan, we prayed that night. Asked God to show us we weren't forgotten. Then your pastries showed up. My daughter said God must have sent an angel who knows pastry baking."

He laughed despite himself, but something stirred inside him, something he hadn't felt since his last deployment, when he'd sat with families in makeshift shelters and realized that presence mattered more than programs.

"I don't know about angel," Jonathan said. "I've been feeling pretty... unemployed. Pretty useless, honestly."

"You've been feeding half the building," Mele replied. "Mrs. Tavita on the third floor told me about the cannoli. Said they reminded her of her honeymoon in Sicily before her husband died. She cried happy tears."

Jonathan looked down at his feet, half-buried in sand. "I didn't know that."

"We don't always see what we're building," Mele said gently. "But God does."

Her son tugged on Jonathan's sleeve. "Will you make more? For New Year's?"

"Maybe," Jonathan said, then corrected himself. "Yes. Actually, yes."

That night, Jonathan sat on his apartment balcony, an extremely narrow one, when just small chairs could fit in and no space to move, and he missed the one back in his homeland that over looked a busy street but quite spacious where his wife had placed a bunch of flowering pots, listening to the sounds of summer Christmas, children laughing in the society pool, cicadas singing, distant music. His laptop glowed with another job application half-finished, but he closed it.

Instead, he opened his journal and began writing.

Jesus told a story about a merchant looking for fine pearls who found one of great value and sold everything to buy it. I always thought the pearl was some future thing, a perfect job, a healed relationship, circumstances falling into place. But what if the pearl is something else entirely?

He paused, thinking of Mele's words. Of Mrs. Tavita crying happy tears over cannoli. Of the presence he'd felt in conflict zones when he had nothing to offer but attention and care.

What if the pearl is God's presence, available even in prison-literal or metaphorical? What if the pearl is recognizing that his favor can rest on my life even when everything looks like failure? Like that described and talked of in the life of Jospeh in Genesis 39 and onwards. What if the most valuable thing isn't the circumstances I'm desperate to escape, but the way God meets me inside them?

By New Year's Eve, Jonathan's small kitchen had become a production line. He'd invited everyone from his building, twenty-three people from seven countries crammed into the apartment complex's courtyard. The table groaned under croissants, sfogliatelle, fruit tarts dusted with summer berries, cream horns, and his grandmother's recipe for Portuguese custard tarts-Pastes de Nata.

"This is too much," Mrs. Tavita protested, though she was already reaching for seconds.

"This is exactly enough," Jonathan countered. He stood and raised his glass of sparkling apple juice. "I want to say something."

The courtyard quieted, faces turned toward him in the warm evening light.

"Three years ago I got laid off from active work, and about Eighteen months ago me and wife moved out and came to this region of the world, and of late I felt like a complete failure. Lost my work overseas, couldn't find anything here, felt trapped in circumstances I couldn't change. Felt like a prisoner to my own uselessness." He glanced at Mele, who nodded encouragingly.

"But you all taught me something this Christmas. You taught me that God's presence, his favor, his blessing doesn't wait for perfect circumstances. It shows up in the middle of whatever prison we're in, just like the Jospeh we see in the book of Gensis in the Holy Bible. And sometimes the most valuable thing we can do is just... be faithful right where we are. Make the pastries. Share the table. Show up."

He lifted his glass higher. "Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great value, worth selling everything to obtain. I spent years looking for that pearl in the next deployment, the next job, the better circumstances. But I found it here, this summer, in this place I thought was a dead end. I found it in God's presence with us, even when nothing else makes sense."

"Amen!" someone called out.

Jonathan folded the note carefully and looked up at the Tasmanian stars, the same stars that had watched over him in conflict zones, in uncertainty, in every place he'd ever felt lost.

The pearl, he realized, wasn't something to find once and possess forever. It was something to discover again and again, the infinite value of God's presence, available in every circumstance, transforming every prison into a place of purpose.

Worth everything. Worth anything.

The most valuable possession of all.

He turned off the light and went to bed, already planning next week's pastries, already grateful for the gift that had found him when he'd stopped running long enough to receive it.

"Also," Jonathan added with a grin, "I got a job offer yesterday. Part-time at first, coordinating refugee resettlement services. But the truth is, I found the pearl before the job came. That's what I want you to know."

The courtyard erupted in cheers and applause. Mele was crying again, happy tears this time. Her daughter ran up and hugged Jonathan's legs.

"Does this mean more éclairs?" she asked seriously.

"So many éclairs," Jonathan promised. "But not because I'm trying to fill empty time anymore. Because this is how I want to live, sharing what I have, trusting that God's presence is enough, even when circumstances aren't perfect."

Later, after everyone had gone home and Jonathan was cleaning up under a sky full of southern stars, he found a note tucked under his door. Mele's handwriting:

The pearl isn't just for you, wayfarer. You've been helping the rest of us find it too. Thank you for staying faithful in your prison. Your presence reminded us God was present too. Merry Summer Christmas. Your fellow travelers on the road.