RING DING? Ring dang.

Ring Ding.  Ever heard of it? Neither had I.  I’m finding that Louisiana has figured out a way to throw a party for any and every thing.  Ring Ding is a tradition here whereby the juniors in High School become Seniors.  It’s the day they are given and begin to officially wear their senior rings.  Apparently, it’s a thing.  It’s a celebration.  There will be toasts, cakes, punch, tears and we will begin Arianna’s last year of high school full of the “lasts” of everything.  There’s an entire ceremony

dedicated to this moment.  They cross the stage as Juniors and exit as Seniors with their new shiny rings.  There’s even a committee dedicated to the details of said ceremony.  I know because Arianna is on it.  She wrote a skit, she’s buying the t-shirt(not kidding, there’s really a t-shirt), she’s shopping for a dress and I’ve signed up to bring a case of water and cake balls to the after party. 

The Jr. Class parentage has rented out the Mardis Gras Museum to house the party that will commence once we get our kids ring dinged up.

  I don’t know who will be happier – the kids who are approaching adulthood, or the parents who are approaching freedom.  I said all that to say this.  We’ve been shopping for Arianna’s class ring.  Sounds like simple task but nothing is simple with a 16-year-old girl. (Even one as perfect as mine).  She didn’t want a traditional class ring. She wanted a dinner ring that we could inscribe with her High School and class year inside the band.  One that she could wear forever.  So…..what kind of stone do you get in a dinner/high school ring?  Your birthstone of course.  Arianna was born in June – Alexandrite.  A beautiful stone of multiple glorious colors.  Rare and expensive.  So rare and expensive, in fact, that we couldn’t find a store that had any.  “What about mystic topaz,” I offered and begged Arianna to try some on.  It looks kind of the same.  “No go.  Hard Pass,” she said.   Why oh why couldn’t her birthstone be Cubic Zirconia?  There is plenty of that.  Ahhh….the rubies.  My pale baby would look delightful in a ruby.  “No Mom,” she panned as she side stepped her way down the jewelry case to the sapphires.  “I want a sapphire.  It’s blue….it’s Airline High School Blue,” she concluded.  I waved her back to the rubies.  She wouldn’t budge.  Then there was a pink rose

colored stone that I knew she would look fabulous in.  She tried it on briefly and went back to the sapphire section.  Again I coaxed her to the rubies.  “Just try it on…,” I pleaded.  I’m her mom.  I know what looks good on my alabaster baby.  But there she hovered over the dark blue stones – fixated.  “Let’s come back later,” I said.  I planned on getting her dad behind me on this.  How can she go around the rest of her life in a sapphire when her skin tone clearly screams RUBY!!  Could I, as her mother, let her make this mistake and even bank roll it??  I had become completely convinced of the grandeur of this Ring Ding Moment.   Could I let her slip into adulthood with the wrong ring?  I argued my case into the night…into the next day when I found myself on the front row at Bible Study.  My husband was reading from Exodus when he caught my attention with this verse.

Exodus 24: 9-10: “Moses went up, also Aaron…and seventy of the elders of Israel,  and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity.”

“What,” I thought to myself.  “Did Rob just say sapphire?”  What are the odds of us being on a book in the Bible, on the very chapter, on the exact verse, where, of all things described – the word ‘sapphire’ appears??  The elders of Israel were going to get to see God Almighty.  Can you imagine the suspense?  Moses led the way and all they could record about this moment was the pavement where God rested his feet….sapphires.  I feverishly dug deeper.  Sapphires were also on the high priest’s breastplate and God’s throne is described as a throne of sapphire….and did you know some scholars believe the ten commandments were etched on cubes of sapphire?

Later, on the drive home, I told Rob of the grand connection I had made with the Bible Study as it related to our first born and the tedious task of ring buying.  “Really,” he replied. “That’s all you got from my Bible Study?”

Yesterday we picked up Arianna’s class ring.  A sapphire.  “Will I marry senior year?  Yes I will,” she joked as she slipped it on and off with pure, unfettered, joy.  I hope she loves it that much forever.  While she makes her own exodus from childhood, I pray she sees this ring as a constant reminder of His Throne, His Commandments. When the fanfare of senior year has come and gone and the realities of adulthood and college, responsibilities and bills settle in all around her…I hope she looks at her little ring and remembers to put herself there – on His sapphire pavement.  At His feet.  It’s the only posture in life that works. 

Rubies.  Silly me.  What was I thinking?