I like surprises. The good kind, I mean. The time your cat brings into the house a “surprise” is not the kind that I’m talking about. The good kind is when something makes you happy and you were not expecting it. That happened to me yesterday. Twice.
The first one was when I opened our e-mail account to find 2 e-mails from Adam. On Tuesday, we were at his work and I saw his new computer for the 1st time (those 21” screens are awesome!). On his desktop, there was a really beautiful picture that I “oo-ed” and “ahh-ed” about (he showed me other ones that were equally beautiful). Well, he bundled all 12 up and sent them to me! Isn’t that sweet? Now I have them on our desktop here at home!
Aren’t they beautiful?! The children were all excited that both Adam and I have walked near that large rock on the shore of the ocean (top right picture). It is on the coast of Oregon. He said he was there in 1987 and I know I was there sometime before 1988, but I have no idea what year.
The 2nd surprise I got yesterday was from my mother. A few weeks ago, I was talking to her about some dishes that I had seen. You see, I have a love affair with pretty dishes. And they usually love me back. For I love color! Bright, beautiful, bold colors! I used to wear such colors, but not anymore. Wearing something bright and “stand-out-ish” doesn’t really lend itself to modesty, for I don’t want to draw attention to myself. I suppose some might make the argument that wearing a head covering draws attention to a person. And I will agree, it does. However, the comment “She is covering her head with something. I wonder why?” (and if they ask, you can explain and sometimes this can lead you to talking about Christ) is much different than “Whoa! That’s a bright dress! I can’t believe she actually wore that in public!”. See the difference?
Anyway, I don’t dress in those kinds of colors anymore (although it’s not all black and navy,either). I tease Adam that his favorite color is white. It’s not and he doesn’t really have a favorite color. I just like to tease him about it. The children do it sometimes and I think it’s hilarious! But he usually doesn’t laugh along with us. I wonder why?….So I try to keep this in mind when decorating the house. We’ve lived here for over 6 years, so there’s not much wall space left to do and there is color on the walls. But not really bright colors (although he would say they are bright. Because they’re not white…Ahh, I’m such a stinker, aren’t I? 🙂 ).
So in come the dishes. I get my color fix from beautiful, colorful dishes. And so I was telling my mother about these dishes and how the best thing about them, along with the colors, was there was scripture on them. That’s right! Scripture on the dishes! How cool is that? I’m sure you can imagine my shock when the FedEx guy delivered a whole set of these cool dishes to my door! And they are even more gorgeous in person than in a picture!
“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” John 10:10 NIV (I personally read the KJV and I like the wording of that better, “I am come that they may have life and that they might have it more abundantly”. I just think that “more abundantly” sounds more deep than “to the full”. But I still love these dishes!) The little blue plate says “life” on it. And the black and white plate says “life” in many different languages. Aren’t the colors absolutely wonderful?!
And to top these two things off, I finished my dress that I’ve only been working on for 3 MONTHS!! Oh, my word! I can’t TELL you what a relief that is (and how embarrassing it is to know it’s taken me that long to do it!). Yesterday was a good day all around!