Thursday, April 29, 2010

Service is like a Mosaic

Some of you may remember I went to a yard sale a few weeks ago and purchased this beautiful hope chest for $40.00.

The woman who sold it to me was kind, like so nice I wanted to her to adopt me. Her name was Loretta and she had the beauty of an artist. You know what I mean. Beautiful olive skin, thick hair that looked like it never had a bad day, eyes with light beaming out of them (like she knew more then the rest of us) and a certain humility that made me want to learn something from her.

“I know I have the key somewhere,” she said, pointing to the lock on the hope chest.

Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about the lock, but Loretta took my name and number and promised to give me a call when she found the key.

What Loretta didn’t know was most things I purchase at yard sales I bring home, clean up and resale on EBay or Craig’s List. I was certain the hope chest would be sold by the end of the weekend for $100.00.

But there was something so lovely about the hope chest and I wanted to keep it. Still, ambitious and curious as I am, I put it on Craig’s List. I received numerous inquiries, but never called anyone back.

A week later I received a call from Loretta. She’d found the key.

I drove out to her house and this is what she handed me; the key, the original booklet and the original tag.

Seriously, who’s this organized? Who keeps this stuff? Obviously beautiful, artistic, nice people with shiny eyes.

I gave Loretta a hug and knew I would keep the hope chest; I just wasn’t sure where I would put it.

Loretta told me her garage was full of items left over from the yard sale.

“I’m going to donate all this stuff, so take what you want,” she said as she opened her garage. Heaven!

It was so much fun looking through all her stuff, but to my surprise she had something special saved for me.

It was a dresser full of broken china, tile, rystals and trinkets.

“This is my box of mosaics. I've made all sort of beautiful stuff,” she said. “I can’t keep them because I’m moving out of state and have no room to take them with me. All these pieces I have some sentimental value to me. I want you to have them.”

I did take Loretta’s dresser full of mosaic pieces, but I had someone special in mind to give them to.

This is Rachel.

She’s a beautiful girl in my church who I greatly admire. I always see her serving her family. With a single mother and 5 younger brothers, it’s easy to see why. Here she is pictured with her mom.

Rachel also has an artist’s beauty and I felt impressed to offer Loretta’s mosaic’s to her. I can’t wait to see what she creates.

We may all be a bit broken, but beautiful in are own way. Bit by bit, we love & serve others and it comes together into a beautiful creation; even more beautiful then a mosaic.

Mosaic art by Sandy Roertson Image found here.

My beautiful sister in law, Heather featured the rest of this story on her blog, Miscellaneous, etc. Click here to read more.

1 comment:

  1. I too bought an old cedar chest recently for my master bedroom. After doing some googling I dicovered all the old Lane chests are on recall because of their locks. Because the old ones are self latching children have suffocated inside them!! I called Lane's 1-800 hotline and they sent me a FREE replacement lock within a week. So cool! LOVE your blog :)

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