I’m excited to be participating in Tablescape Thursday this week.  I love viewing all the other entries in this blog event and I hope you’ll enjoy them as well.

It was a beautiful spring evening and I had the honor of being the hostess for our “Ladies Night Out” for the month of June. The guests were the ladies of my Sunday School class. Usually, we just bring some food and set it on a table, but after spending hours on my new laptop, visiting all of the beautiful tablescapes I had seen on “Tablescape Thursday,” I decided to try my hand at it. I knew there was no worry about having enough items to decorate. I was just worried about my friends thinking that I was going a little overboard with the decor. It’s certainly not that these women are not “classy” it’s just that we enjoy each other’s company so much, we don’t usually give a lot of thought about decorating. We just love being together. But I wondered if we could we do both and still have a great time.
Throwing my cares to the wind the morning before the event was to take place, I decided to decorate my chandelier. Well, as typically happens to me, what starts out to be few little branches of cherry blossoms, turns into 2 hours of adding more and more. I worried that it was a little over the top, but as always I just couldn’t help myself since I loved what I was doing. As I added the leaves and the bird nest, my insecurities rose to the top as I asked myself “Are they going to think I’m just showing off?” Perhaps they would, but we all love each other so much, I knew they would all be forgiving.
Then came the table. The white tablecloth was like an empty canvass waiting to be filled. I used a white chair tie as the center table runner. I loved the pearls at the end which led me to use two strands of bead garland on top of the runner.
Where’s the color for this canvas? I then brought my spring floral arrangements onto the canvas I was painting. What fun as the colors seemed to usher in the softness of the spring months we were experiencing.
To think of the spring without some kind of feathered friend being a part of this party was unimaginable! So, as I gathered the mother duck and her little ducklings I had the piece, that until my dear friends arrived, would grace my table and remind me that God has given me so many precious people and things for me to enjoy in this life.
As the colors began to come together, my table napkins only added to the softness of the color scheme. I was having so much fun and didn’t care if my dessert was a flop or not. I was doing what I loved.
As I sat the stemware on the table, I remembered how much I enjoyed having people into my home, even if it were only for a cup of water in elegant stemware. And the fun of using my good silverware reminded me of the days of old when I used to do it so much more. Whatever happened to the days when I always asked someone home after church for a Sunday dinner?
When my friends arrived, I soon forgot all my insecurities and enjoyed their company as much as I had enjoyed getting ready for them. Oh, and by the way, the dessert was wonderful. I rested in knowing that we all enjoyed each other’s company and that I had the privilege of serving my guests and making their short time here a thing of beauty.

Thank you to all of you at Tablescape Thursday for inspiring me to do what is truly fulfilling in life–serving others.