Tea Time Tuesday ~ With The Thursday Ladies

 

My favorite of 4 tea cups in this set I bought 2 years ago. It is a pale minty green chintz pattern, and comes in a beautiful box to store it in with the 3 other chintz teacups in this set. I used the chintz teacups for a ladies luncheon last Thursday.

I will call these lovely ladies the Thursday Ladies. We gather once a month on Thursday to share a meal together and study the Bible.

We are studying I Samuel using Myrna Alexander's book 'After God's Heart".

Mothers are welcome to bring their children, and the children have their own table. I have always appreciated homes open to children, and the opportunity for children to gather with us is also an opportunity for mothers & grandmothers to enjoy their company, and also teach them how to behave properly when they are in someone else's home.( these are pretty well behaved children , so it is no trouble to enjoy each other and them!)

If you look closely at the table, you can see the Chintz teacups.

Inside the box.

 

"Gracie China, Chintz Collection " made in China

 

 

 Having so many beautiful teacups and china I love, it is a pleasure & a privilege to share them with friends and family. Did you know hospitality, or being hospitable ~"receiving and entertaining guests generously & kindly" (Webster's Dictionary ) is commanded by God? Hospitality requires nothing more than a welcoming heart and willingness to share your hearth and home. Hospitality does not require fancy table settings and food, nor does it require a perfect home.I Peter 4:9,10 says, "Be hospitable to one another without complaint. As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." Sometimes simply sharing a cup of tea with someone and offering a listening heart and a prayer is all it takes to show true hospitality.

 

The Thursday Ladies have already been a blessing and the study of I Samuel promises to be one of personal challenge to me....learning to trust God as Hannah ,mother of the prophet Samuel did. "Turn first to God for comfort ( in times of pain & distress)not to something or someone else. And give Him your emotions." Myrna Alexander

 

I am linking with these ladies for Tea Time Tuesday ~

• Bernideen's Tea time Blog *
• Sandi At Rose Chintz Cottage *
• Terri at Artful Affirmations *
• Martha at Martha's Favorites *
• Antiques & Teacups *
•  

 

 

Take Joy in The Journey

"For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity." William Penn~I can't help myself. When I spend a lot of time crafting, gardening, cleaning...why my brain just wanders around with thinking. As I get older ( not so much wiser though) I do see that my life, your life....life in general is a journey. The journey of my life did not begin with me though, not really.The journey, my journey began a long long time ago....with my parents, their parents, their parents, and so on. Physically I am the bits and pieces genetics have brought together thus far. Mentally and emotionally , genes, upbringing, and life experiences have contributed to making me what I am. But I think there is so much more.

~I love the writings of Tolkein. ( Don't know what genes contributed to that preference...no one on any side of my family reads Tolkein) There is a part of the third book of the trilogy THE RETURN OF THE KING, where the journey to throw the ring into Mount Doom seems hopeless. The whole story has become doom, gloom, dread, suffering and destruction. Sam and Frodo are suffering miserably and it looks like all is lost.Sam is pondering , and he says "It's like in the great stories Mr.Frodo , the ones that really mattered.Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it is only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass." Sam talks about how really , he and Frodo were just a part of the big story. Two little hobbits , and in the grand scheme of life, appearing to be so very insignificant. And yet, they play the crucial part. ( For those of you who have never read this book or seen the movies, it has a happy ending) ~ I must go back through my book to find the pages and re read this. But here is my point, we mere mortals forget that though this life is fleeting, it is not the end. There is eternity. We too are part of the really big story. Oh sure, most of us will not be written up in history books, we will not make amazing discoveries and have the kind of adventures that make headlines . But we really are on an amazing journey that began in the Garden of Eden and ends....no, does NOT end, but we die and go on to eternity. We are maybe a comma, or dotted 'i' in the book of life for man here on earth, the drama of joys and tragedies. I am part of this epic ! Wow ! My life's trials and sorrows and mundane day to day activities do matter. They really do ! ~ The Bible is chock full of true stories about people most of us would have called way below ordinary, maybe even people we would most definitely have avoided, yet they are important in the big picture here. So you know, you are important, I am important...in as much as God has seen us important and special enough to have allowed His only Son to die a horrible death on the cross, the worst part of His death was not the agony and humiliation, but bearing our sins...and then He rose from the grave, triumphant over death. "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life." I John 5:13

~Here we are. Our journey began "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" Genesis 1:1.......and sometime in the future....."And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come." And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost,.......He who testifies to these things says "Yes, I am coming quickly." Amen. Come Lord Jesus.The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.Amen." Revelation 22:18, 20,21 There, the first words and last words of the Bible....the journey we are on is somewhere in between.

~Take joy in your journey, no matter what your circumstance!~