A Beautiful Blessing

I took a little drive one day to a neighboring town with my sister.  We were going to look for beads to make rosaries with at consignment and thrift shops.  Walking down the street of a quaint little town, we popped into a secondhand store.  It was a small, tightly packed store with nooks and crannies filled to the brim with old and new alike. The proprietor asked us if she could be of any help and we chimed in together that we were looking for beads to make rosaries with. To our delight she revealed that she too was a Catholic and lead into stories of her life and faith.  It was such a blessing to share conversation of our mutual faith and hope in Jesus and His Church.  We didn’t have much fortune in finding beads there, but the kind woman excitedly asked us to follow her to the back of the store.  Reaching to a high dusty shelf she carefully brought down a beautiful statue of the Blessed Mother standing about 12 inches tall.  It was feather light and very delicately fashioned with a brown glaze.  She told us that she would like to give us the statue because she knew that we would be reverent and truly appreciate it…she had no intentions of ever just selling it to an antique collector.  What an amazing blessing that lifted our spirit!

The beautiful statue sat on my windowsill and greeted me in the morning with a reminder to ever so diligently seek the will of God and say yes to Him daily.  One day I was rearranging the room and accidentally knocked over the delicate paper clay statue.  Horrified and saddened I picked up the two pieces thinking, how could have I been so careless as to let this happen.  As I was repairing the damage I realized there was no way to evenly match the finish without repainting the whole statue.  So with that, Our Lady’s statue went from sepia to color.  While prepping the statue for paint I had a deep desire to add a little something so I sculpted out of clay a symbol of The Immaculate Heart.  It turned out more beautiful than I imagined it would and now is placed in a secure alcove to be honored far out reach.

Thank you my sweet Jesus for all the little ways you inspire my days!