Susie Clark along with her husband spent several days looking for diamonds at an Arkansas state park — and on her last day of hunting, she prayed to God and then found a huge white diamond.

Clark of Evening Shade, Arkansas, first visited the Crater of Diamonds State Park, Arkansas’s diamond site, 33 years ago with her mother and grandmother from Germany.

A return visit with her husband last week was highlighted on Clark’s last day of diamond hunting Thursday by a beautiful, 3.69-carat white diamond that she found near the South Washing Pavilion of the park’s 37 ½-acre search field.

According to Clark, she found the gem on the surface of the field Thursday afternoon after she asked God, “Are you going to bless me and let me find a diamond today?”

Shortly after her prayer, Clark saw the diamond sticking out of a furrow ridge in the plowed dirt.

She knew it was a diamond, and said to herself, “This is a diamond. And it’s a big one!”

Because Clark found the diamond after saying that prayer on her last day of searching at the park, she named her teardrop-shaped gem the Hallelujah Diamond. At this time, she plans to keep her gem.

According to Park Official Waymon Cox, the large diamond is about the size of pinto bean.

“The gem is frosted white with a pearlescent, metallic shine. This is the largest diamond found so far this year. And it’s the largest one found since April 16, 2014, when a 6.19-carat white diamond, named the Limitless Diamond, was found at the park,” he said.

“Mrs. Clark’s diamond is the 122nd diamond found at the park this year,” Cox added.

Cox noted that the park has experienced a lot of rain over the past couple of weeks, plus the park maintenance staff plowed the search field — the eroded surface of an ancient, diamond-bearing deposit — earlier this week.

“This regular endeavor loosens the diamond-bearing soil which, along with rain erosion, brings more diamonds to the surface and helps park visitors’ chances of finding them. With all the rain we’ve been seeing, along with this week’s plowing, there’s a good chance more diamonds will be found on the surface in the days to come.”

He stressed that conditions on the search field are perfect now for finding diamonds on the surface of the field.

.“Diamonds are a bit heavy for their size, and they lack static electricity, so rainfall slides the dirt off diamonds that are on the surface of the search area leaving them exposed. And when the sun comes out, they’ll sparkle and be noticed.”

The search area at the Crater of Diamonds is a 37 ½-acre plowed field that is the eroded surface of the eighth largest diamond-bearing deposit in the world, in surface area. It is the world’s only diamond-producing site open to the public. The park’s policy is finder-keepers.

What park visitors find is theirs to keep. The park staff provides free identification and registration of diamonds. Park interpretive programs and exhibits explain the site’s geology and history, and offer tips on recognizing diamonds in the rough.

In total, over 75,000 diamonds have been unearthed at Arkansas’s diamond site since the first diamonds found in 1906 by John Huddleston, the farmer who at that time owned the land, long before the site became an Arkansas state park in 1972. The largest diamond ever discovered in the U.S. was unearthed here in 1924 during an early mining operation.

Named the Uncle Sam, this white diamond with a pink cast weighed 40.23 carats. Notable diamonds found by park visitors since the state park was established at the site include the Amarillo Starlight, a 16.37-carat white diamond discovered in 1975 which ranks as the largest diamond ever found by a park visitor.

In 2011, a visitor from Colorado found an 8.66-carat white diamond she named the Illusion Diamond, which is the third-largest gem registered here since the Crater of Diamonds State Park was established in 1972.

— Info from Arkansas State Park press release