Just a China Teapot

This is what's left of my mom's china.. I kept it wrapped in clothes in a suitcase I used to use when traveling around as a kid. I was shuffled around alot, and it is by the grace of God that it survived all my travels. When my oldest brother got married, and I was going off to college, I gave it to him where it would be safe. He keeps it displayed in the foyer of his home with my fathers ring.

They are precious to my entire family and I love seeing them each time I visit his home. My mom had lots of beautiful glassware, we were small when she died, and it all got lost in the shuffle. The cool thing is that my brother didn't even know I had kept it. We had to flee our home as kids and it was one of the few things of my moms I managed to hide away. I was visiting my brother my last year of high school and he made the comment one night as we were talking how much he wished he had mom's teapot of all her things.. I had no idea it meant as much to him as to me... when I took it from my suitcase to show him.. he was so moved by it, that I gave it to him to keep safe for our family. Funny how those split second thoughts as a kid are so guided by God, even concerning things that would seem so insignificant as a little china teapot.

It's old and prolly has a reasonable monetary value.. but no one in my family could set a price on it. It is one of the few remaining possessions that our mother's hands had handled with such care and tenderness. It's so much more than priceless ♥

~ The other great thing I forgot to mention is that my oldest brother had left home years before me.. he had taken the creamer dish from her dishes that we had salvaged as kids.. he was showing me the creamer dish that night that we were talking and was remembering drinking tea with my mom as a boy.. then I dug the teapot from my suitcase and gave it to him.. I love that some of our fondest memories of my mom were so similar. What are the odds that we would both hide away pieces of her china without knowing that one day as adults we would bring those pieces back together. Such a picture of how God keeps his promises.. he watches over the fatherless and the motherless.. he heals and restores the things we think are lost forever. 

~ and he uses us in the process... pretty incredible.