Sweet Tea & Jesus

We are finally back in Texas. It has been a month since I last posted and so much has transpired in this month. We are settling quickly into our new place here in Dallas and am quickly adjusting to all that Texas has to offer…great restaurants, great churches, great friends and of course, some of our family.

The last post was written as we were leaving Italy. As we look back at where we were just a month ago today, we realize our lives have already adapted back to how we lived before going to live in Italy for 3 months. We are once again driving instead of walking everywhere or taking buses. We have a dryer again and fast food on every corner. But we hope that some of the changes which we made overseas will stay with us…like giving up diet drinks and lots of meat. But that is for another story.
Upon leaving Dallas back in February, we had stopped at Buckee’s for gas, Dr. Pepper and snacks before heading down the road to begin our adventures. While looking over the kitchen items on each of the aisle’s at Buckee’s, there staring back at me was a pillow with this on the front; “I was raised on Sweet Tea & Jesus”. But because we already looked like we were road hoarders with every inch of our car loaded, I told Randy I would not buy the pillow on the way out, but would stop coming back into Texas and buy that pillow for our new place. Well, I’m sure you can guess what occurred…the pillow is no where to be found. I have searched hi and low and every web site I can think of but to no avail. Thinking back over my life, there have been very few days when I did not have sweet tea to drink and since I was raised in Church from the time of my conception, Jesus has been a part of my every day life as well. This pillow was right up my ally. Plus it was just so cute.

As the last box of items have been finally unpacked and our home is finally taking shape, we have had several things occur that has kinda blown us away. The first story I want to tell you about is how God gave us a most amazing table and chairs set for our new place.
Because we were storing all of our belongings in pods for 8 months, we decided before leaving AZ that we would sell as much as we could to avoid having to have multiple pods, so all of our tables and chairs were sold as well as living room couches and chairs. When we arrived here two weeks ago, we began to search for a dining room table with chairs. Because this condo is small, there is only one eating space in the dining room. Not wanting a table that looked like it belonged in a kitchen or wanting a formal look that didn’t go with our antiqued washed cabinet which is black, I went looking for a black table and chairs. After hours of looking at Pier One, Rooms to Go, Weirs, Ashly, and several web sites, I decided to start looking on Facebook Market Place. After searching for a couple of days, one popped up that would be perfect. It was an antique Farm House black Duncan Table with 6 chairs. I immediately texted her to see if it was available but the lady told me it was pending pick up for the following day. I ask her to please let me know if for some reason the buyers did not show up or decide not to buy it.(it had been posted for a 2 weeks I believe already), Honestly I did not expect to hear back from her, however, the next morning, she wrote and told me that they indeed did not show up. So we quickly drove over and fell in love with it the minute she opened the front door. The table and chairs were $100. We couldn’t believe what we got for the money. We found the perfect material already to recover the chairs and am in love with how it goes so beautifully with all of our things. God was so good to give us this great set.
The next story is about a set of chairs which we got yesterday. We have been looking for a chair for the living room to replace some chairs which we sold due to the fact that they were needing replacing long before now, but because they were so comfortable and they were my chairs where I would sit each morning for my quiet time with the Lord, It was so hard to actually sell them, knowing the sweet times of prayer that had taken place while sitting in them. In fact, I called them my “meet with Jesus chairs”.
There were times and seasons in our lives, when, like most parents, we needed to just pray for our kids for difficult times in their lives. Prayers were said for new grand babies being born, or jobs which had ended or changed and we were praying for God’s direction or wisdom before making decisions. Health issues were prayed over, aging parents and how to care for them were prayers which were said some times with tears in our eyes as we sat. There were certainly nights when we sat in these precious gold chairs while we would be reading God’s Word and praying for friends or family as they went through difficult days. When we had Bible Studies in our home, usually one of us would be sitting in one of these chairs as we would lead or discuss God’s Word with others. Yes, the chairs that we were now replacing had so many precious memories and were missed.
But, as we know, material things do not last forever. It was time for a new chair. Making a note to myself and out loud to Randy that the chair would need to be deep enough to sit back and curl my legs back under as that is how I sit when I read. It needed to be comfy and soft and yet, needed to go with the furniture we had already purchased. So this last week, after we would unpack during the day, we would sit at night and look at different web sites and at FB Marketplace. We went and looked at a few that looked promising, but nothing ever materialized. It would either be the wrong color, size, not comfortable or was to big or to small. Just like Goldilocks. Well, yesterday, after taking one chair back to Weirs which ended up not being the right color or size once we got it up here, we went to see a set of chairs which we had found on FB. On the way to look at them I told Randy, “I’m done. Im tired and if these chairs don’t work, let’s forget about looking at chairs for a few days and just concentrate on finishing up the little things which we need to do and take a few days off from looking. I was getting frustrated. Well the set of chairs that we looked at were not what we expected. So we got back in the car and I said, “ok that’s it, no more looking at chairs for a few days. Let’s go home.” it was hot, 104 and we were both exhausted from carrying the Weirs chair back down the stairs that morning. But as I got in the car, I felt led to go to FB and open the Marketplace. As soon as I did, there were two chairs, staring back at me and I quickly showed them to Randy. They looked exactly like what we would want. He told me to quickly text the guy and ask if we could come look at them, so I did. I noticed that they had posted one hour before and as before, I quickly went to the guys FB page for security reasons. We always do that. The mans’ name sounded familiar to me and I looked him up and noticed that he was friends with so many of our friends from Prestonwood. He quickly texted back and said to come right then and look at them. So off we went to the address he gave us. As we drove over there, it dawned on me that the address we were given was the address of First Bapt Carrollton and the man was their pastor.
As we pulled up to the church, we introduced ourselves to Pastor Taylor and in the next 15 minutes we had loaded one of the chairs into the back of our car. The other one will be picked up tomorrow, as we could’t fit both of them in. The church is moving and selling lots of furniture. As we drove the one chair here, I told Randy, isn’t it just so precious that my “meet with Jesus” chair is being replaced with a chair that we bought from a church. And the Lord gave them to us for once again, $100 for both.
God’s Word tells us that when He blesses us, we are to tell others of those blessings and gifts and to give Him the glory. Dear sweet friends, I pray this post today will not only remind you of God’s love but also that God cares and knows our needs, no matter how small. He is faithful to meet those needs. Yes, He even brought us back to Sweet Tea Country and gives me stories to tell others so that He will be praised.