When the Morning Glory Blooms (9781426770777) by Ruchti Cynthia

Author:Ruchti, Cynthia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abingdon Pr
Published: 2013-09-11T04:00:00+00:00

The dinner party almost a year into it was Lydia’s idea.

I’d always answered honestly when asked about the financial picture for the home. “God is good. We have no reserves. But God is good.”

I often tacked a faith statement onto both the front and back of our needs, like a train with a locomotive at each end. There were times, many times, when the cars in between reached far down the track, around the bend, beyond my sight. But I was often reminded that where God is concerned, there is always a locomotive at each end.

Lydia suggested a formal dinner party with a table full of prospective contributors. She’d handle the guest list if I’d see to the food and prepare a compelling appeal about the value of my home for unwed mothers.

Its value? I wasn’t yet convinced of its wisdom. I wavered like a newborn colt, eager to run but handicapped by my own weaknesses and clumsiness. The meal would be the less taxing of the two chores.

For some reason, Lydia felt it necessary to keep the guest list from me. I was informed there would be twenty of us dining together on the chosen Saturday evening. That was all I knew.

Puff helped me put all three leaves in the thick-legged table in the dining room days ahead of time to allow me the opportunity to fuss and fiddle. A snowy damask tablecloth served as foundation. And upon it I would put what? The dishes we were content to use any other day seemed as coarse as burlap for this event, and woefully mismatched. Six milky blue. Seven bright cobalt. A handful of white bread-and-butter plates. All hand-me-downs for which I’d once been grateful and now found embarrassing.

But not for long.

Dr. Noel paid an unexpected visit the afternoon of my fretting over the dishes. He was on his way home from setting the broken leg of a neighboring farm boy whose hayloft acrobatics cost him a bit of time off his feet. The family paid Dr. Noel in the currency in which they were accustomed to dealing—gooseberry preserves, pillow slips, and an odd assortment of china. Two of this, one of that, three of another—bowls and cups and saucers and plates. White, pale blue, and silver-rimmed.

“The preserves I intend to keep for myself,” he said. “But I have no use for the pillow slips or the plates. Could you use them?”

As so often happened, I’d been unable to create an answer to my need. Why had I assumed it was up to me? Why did I repeatedly falter when my own imagination ran dry of ideas? Didn’t I know by then that the Lord delights in surprising His children with answers beyond imagination?

Each of the twenty place settings was unique, a quality I hoped my guests would find more appealing than symmetry. From the scrap box, I pulled a generous remnant of soft yellow cotton fabric. Measuring carefully, I cut from it twenty equal squares for dinner napkins. Bachelor’s buttons and marigolds in milk-glass vases would help the setting look intentional, I prayed.

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