Tea with the Father, and some very special ladies--AN UPDATE

First, I would like to thank EVERYONE who was so faithful to pray for our special tea party this past Thursday.  Monica....thank you for putting out the word on The Homespun Heart.  Another huge thanks to Alicia Williamson Garcia for ministering to us through music but also through delivering that very timely word from the Lord.  You challenged not only our very special guests, but me as well--I'm sure that the other hostesses would agree.  WOW--where do I start?  I guess I'll start with the actual tea itself.  Here is a picture of my table after being decorated and then with the "tea goodies" decorating the table. 

This is the table that I hostessed, right before I filled the serving plates with the "dainties" for our tea. 

 

Here you can see the delicious cranberry scones to the right, with the sweets in the backgroud.  Our sweets tray contained beautiful little lemon squares, homemade creamy fudge, Danish wedding cookies and big, read and juicy strawberries.  Along with the hot black tea that was served, we also offered an iced strawberri kiwi tea that was SO delicious and refreshing, because down here in the deep south, it gets    "WA-WUM", as any good southern belle would say (that's "warm" for all of the  Naw-thuhn-uhs reading this post).





And what proper tea is complete without finger sandwiches?  Of course there were cucumber sandwiches, chicken salad and some yummy little open faced homemade pimiento sandwiches. 

God was there with us on Thursday.  He was glorified in every word and every action that took place.  The women at my table were precious, to say the very least.  I will treasure the handwritten prayer requests that they gave to me at the tea.  I had the very high privilege of praying individually with each one over each of these humble requests.  These women may be in some extremely dire circumstances as of late, including drug addiction, alcoholism, abuses of every sort and other issues to many to name.  But on Thursday, they dined with us.  They were ladies with us.  They sipped hot tea, enjoyed scones with lemon curd, double Devonshire clotted cream and fresh strawberry jam.  Some took their tea with cream and sugar, and some took their tea without.  They laughed, they smiled, they heard a wonderful word from the Lord, and just for a minute, they were able to go to another place in time.  It was a safe place, without ridicule and without judgement.  It was a place that they were allowed to be the true ladies that they are, underneath what seems to others to be "tough exteriors".  They wore the best clothes that they had...and they were our HIGHLY HONORED GUESTS for the afternoon.  I can think of no place that I would have rather been at two o'clock in the afternoon on Thursday.  Thank you again for your prayers.  The Lord heard them, each one.  And glory be to the Lord, at the close of Thursday, there were three more added to the Lamb's book of life (as reported to me from the sweet, precious owner of the facility).