The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.

The GOOD:

For a long time I had wanted a pretty set of white dishes for my kitchen. I already had a pretty set of floral dishes and another set with fruit on them but I was a little tire of them. Plus, I could only use plain white or some other solid color tablecloth. Being thrifty....or as some people might even say- stingy....I had been hoping to find a good sale. I looked at several sets of white dishes but none of them just really "caught my fancy".

That is until one day about a month before Christmas. I was in one of my favorite "boutiques"....the Salvation Army Thrift Store... with hubby and our little 3-year-old granddaughter. Hubby was browsing around and I had walked with grandbaby back to the corner where the toys are kept. As she looked through the several bins of toys I glanced at the dishes and brick-a-brack sitting on the adjacent tables. I saw some white dishes covered in dust and thought to myself that they looked pretty good to be in a thrift store! I was actually just interested in the dishes, bowls, mugs and desert plates. Then I saw that there were a whole lot of pieces to this set of dishes. A complete set for 8 people. And also a teapot and a creamer. Only the sugar bowl was missing.

I turned a piece over and saw that it was made in England by Johnson Brothers. Quickly I signaled to my hubby to come over where we were and told him I was interested in buying these dishes. As they were not marked as to price, he walked up to the front and asked the ladies who run the store how much they were asking for the set of dishes. In just a minutes he was back. He sort of pursed his lips and slightly shook his head and said..."You may not want to hear this." My heart sank. "They want $50 he said." He thought that would make me say I didn't want them but he didn't realize what nice dishes these were, nor did he realize how totally I had fallen in love with them during the few minutes since I had discovered them sitting on the cluttered table! I was just about to say, "I'll take them!", when hubby smiled and said he was kidding. That they actually only wanted $10. For the WHOLE set!

I started putting those dishes in the basket as quickly as possible and hurried to the front to pay for them! I could hardly wait to get them home and wash all that grayish dust off them and see just how beautiful they could really be! The ladies were so nice at the store. One found a big box and another found some old newspaper. I carefully wrapped each dish in the paper so they wouldn't get broken on the hour's drive back home.

Several pieces still had the barcode sticker on the bottom of them so I was able to see exactly what style they were...."Regency White". I looked them up on Google just out of curiosity to see about what they cost. Was I ever surprised when I looked up JUST the teapot and saw that it alone cost almost $50. Wow! I really got a great deal on some beautiful dishes! I recognized it as a gift from God. He does things like that for me all the time! And I appreciate it so much!

After I had washed all the pieces they gleamed like white pearls. I was in love! They make me smile every time I drink a cup of coffee from a mug, or eat from a plate, or have my cereal in a bowl. They just make me happy! Do you have things like that? Things that just make you smile??

The BAD:

I usually eat oatmeal for breakfast. In the microwave for 2 minutes 20 seconds on power level 7. Every morning. It cooks great. Or it DID until one morning last week! I put it in to cook just like always except that when I opened the door when the timer went off, the oatmeal had boiled over and made such a mess! I was just aggravated to tell you the truth. I was running late and didn't have time for this mess! I picked the bowl up and sat it down on a plastic lid on the counter so the counter wouldn't get messy. Then I wiped up the spilled oats out of the microwave. As I started toward the garbage can with the messy paper towel in my right hand I decided to pick up the oats...sitting on the plastic lid....in my left hand. And quick as a wink, it happened!

The UGLY:

One of my beautiful, pearly white, makes me smile every time bowls slipped right off that plastic lid and made a dive onto the kitchen floor! It broke into pieces! I wasn't smiling anymore! I was so sad that one of my special dishes had been broken because I had been careless! Nothing to do but pick up the pieces, wipe up the oatmeal, clean the floor and start over. But you better believe I have been much more careful with my dishes since that day! I want to keep the rest of them all in one piece.

That morning after I had everything cleaned up I thought about something. Anger. How just as before the accident I was happily going about my routine of cooking my breakfast, sometimes I am happily going about everyday life not knowing that something upsetting is just about to happen. And how a good day can go sour when something makes me angry. I can get so angry that I "boil over" and make a big mess of things! There are even times that in being careless with the way I try to "clean up the mess" of my anger, I actually break things beyond the fixing point! I know that God can't look on me with a smile when I'm full of anger. I can't even smile when I'm full of anger. I don't want to let anger cause me to break some precious friendship because I don't "cool off" before I reach my "boiling point"!

How about you? Is anger sometimes a weakness in your life too? With God's help we can overcome this weakness.

"Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools." Ecclesiastes 7: 9

Marilyn