I probably should start out with where I come from. I am from the south where one of the first things I learned to make was sweet tea. Where I have an antique deviled egg plate which I bring places and I can tell what kind of mayonnaise someone used at the church potluck based on first taste. I have a set of china that includes a sugar and a creamer and it gets used from time to time. That's what I know that's what I love. Born and bred.
I am thankful I married a southern gentleman. He escorted his three girls along with my sister to a tea room the other day. After a calculated look at the menu (I'm sure he was looking at what had the biggest amount of food;) I looked at him and asked how he felt, being in the lavender room, sipping sweet tea in an old Victorian house. He said he felt fine. You know he was raised to be a man and explore the world on his own by a mama that let them grow, but he also grew up around fine china, manners, and expectations. He said he felt like he was in his grandmother's house. (Which translated to "I am just fine with it because that woman meant so much to me." 11 and a half years I'm pretty good at reading him:)
He wasn't the only man there. I went to wash my hands, walked by a table and just couldn't look away. Sitting at a table for two was a daddy and his young daughter. I passed by them and that little girl had her little teacup and was just a talking away. That big daddy just smiling at his little girl. He was delighted in her. He briefly looked up, but all eyes were on her.
She didn't stop talking the whole time. Just talking about this and that, things that meant the world to a five year old girl. That great big daddy just smiled, taking it all in. She sipped her tea, dainty as she could be, and acted in her element of fancy with her big daddy.
All I could think about was my past week. And my mother who I cried on the phone to about the string of things that went from bad to worse for me, my daughter breaking her arm topping the whole week off with a bang. Her response to me was, "Go put your feet up and drink you some tea, honey." (She also said, "I want to beat them up for you," but that's beside the point.)
I prayed to God. I drank that tea. So the teacup I drank out of? Well, let me tell you a story, it was beautiful, but also chipped. It came from my husband's grandmother. It belongs to the family. She entertained in her beautiful old home as long as she was able. She would wash and dry that china and sometimes her hands weren't steady in her old age, and it would chip, or worse, it would break.
So I guess we could have overlooked the chipped pieces. I suppose they might be thrown away. But no, we kept the chipped ones. I choose the chipped ones out of the cupboard. First choice. I carefully drink around that roughly made edge and I don't mind my daughters carefully drinking with me. The chipped pieces paved the way for grace- a gift from a great grandmother to her great-granddaughters. We drink from the chipped cups with confidence.
I've been that little girl with God, having so much to say and so many important things. I feel hesitant to even bring things to him sometimes, because really, I get tired of myself sometimes. Like the chipped teacup, I have rough edges. I have places in my life where it just isn't fitting together perfectly. I look around me, it's the same for everyone, whether people want to believe it or not. I'm chipped but I most definitely belong in the family.
It's in these times when I ask him and pray, "Lord, show me your love. Show me your connection. Show me you," Then he places these situations in my life and says, "I am doing a good work in you. You are delighting me. My eyes are on you and not moving. I am that loving daddy in the tea room. Those chipped places, they offer grace, humility, a position to receive me fully. Don't stop being. Don't stop loving. Don't stop seeking or telling me your dreams, your worries, your loves and your fears. Keep drinking from that chipped cup."
It's in those rough weeks, those rough situations, those rough, chipped teacups that I remember. I serve a loving God. A Friend. A Redeemer. He pulls me through. He strengthens and He guides me back to Him. He began a good work and he promises to complete it.
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