Revelation

I love life's little surprises!  Today my glance fell on the hand-painted crockery pitcher bought several years ago at an estate sale.  I always kept it turned to the side with the red barn showing, because the bright spot of color reflected other red accents in my white kitchen. For some reason, this morning I turned it around to the other side.  As I stared at the blue farmhouse depicted by the artist, I had a de ja' vu moment.  It could have been our house in Missisisippi where we'd raised our family! 

Why hadn't I noticed it before?  The view was from the front, a flower bed gracing the middle of the yard, with a large, white birdhouse on a tall pole.  We'd had a martin house there forever! And a flower bed in the front! We had the house covered with siding in the same shade of blue more than 30 years ago!  The peak of the roof was facing the road, with a railing on the porch leading to the front door.  The same as ours!

"Look, Howard," I said to my husband as he came in to breakfast.  "This is our house in Mississippi!"  He laughed and marveled and said, "See, there is the light pole!"  Sure enough, it reminded us of the colonial-style lamp post which stood at the edge of our driveway.  A tree in the side yard looked like our old tree and the placement was the same.  A fence inside a row of shrubbery bordered the scene, just as ours had.

I will keep the farmhouse-side of the pitcher visible from now on!  Howard reminisced about our former home and mentioned how we had helped start a church when we first moved there. And the church is still thriving today, 35 years later!  I felt like George Bailey of  "It's a Wonderful Life" when I thought about those times.   The last of our six children was born in that small Mississippi  town, and we didn't move until he had gone away to college. 

The Lord worked it out that my husband would enter the ministry after a career in business while living there.  From that home we launched young adults who would become ministers, a pastor's wife, an R.N., as well as one with the Department of Education and another with a major oil company.

Five of our children would marry while we lived in that house.  During those years we had a butler's tray coffee table we had bought unassembled.  As Howard put it together, he noticed it was short a couple of screws for the brace underneath.  He always meant to replace them, because the brace would turn easily when a foot was propped on it. But we got used to the quirky loose board,  held in place with only one screw at each end.

We called it the courting bench.  It became a family joke when, over time,  first one, then another of our children would sit on the sofa with their sweetheart, unconsciously twirling the brace with their feet, and with downcast eyes and flushed faces announce their engagement to  us.  "Look, they are spinning the board," a sibling would nudge me.  That's when we knew it was serious. 

I got a job at a newspaper while living in the blue house (white, then), and though family duties took precedence over my would-be career, it did awaken in me a desire for writing.  For a year or so after I worked there, they ran my column.  I've been writing ever since, and wonder of wonders, I have published four books!  I love life's little surprises!  It is a wonderful life!