The Healer, the Honey, and the Willow

What do you call a person who procrastinates a post about procrastination?

Apparently, you call her Debbie.

A few weeks ago, I read a wonderful post on My Place to Yours challenging us to create a Sally List, a list of things that we want to do but have been procrastinating.  The inspiration was this cute little quote.

The day I read Susan's challenge, about 400 Sallies jumped to my mind, one of which was to invite our youth pastor and his wife for a thank you dinner.

You see, a few years ago, the youth program at our church was so very ill that it looked as if it was terminal. For reasons best left unyakked, we had a group of young people, Miss Whimsy included, starving for leadership and even more, for love.  

Then God sent Jason, a young man just starting out on the path to the pulpit and engaged to be married to a quiet young woman named Honey. 

Yeah, that's really her given name. Her parents must have chosen the name as they did in the Old Testament, with an eye to what the child would become. Honey is one of the sweetest women I've ever known, and it's a natural sweetness, too. She genuinely loves my daughter, and my daughter loves her right back.

By the way, the name Jason means healer. 

I report; you decide.

Well, something happened the very Sunday after The Sally List Challenge was posted. Jason and Honey approached the pulpit at the end of the service to announce that God has called them to another mission. My thank you dinner would have to happen now or not happen at all.

Looks like Providence to me...

Friday night, they came for supper. The aforementioned daughter came home too, even though she's going to be back here on Tuesday for Thanksgiving break.

It was a very casual supper of chili and sides, mainly because I wanted all the work done in advance.

(And OK, I also wanted to use my soup tureen, which has been posing as a decorative item for 25 years and never actually used for soup.  Using it  is  was an item on The Infamous List.)

These  pictures are lousy because 

the sun was already setting, and I was too busy to worry about it. 


I used some dishes that match my tureen.

The centerpiece was simple.  
Yes, it would have looked nicer with candles, 
but Honey and Jason didn't come alone, you see. 


In the years since God sent them,
he also sent them a precious baby girl named Willow. 

I personally think tables ought to be flameless when a baby is around, especially when the baby is named after a tree.  

Rather than dig out our old high chair,  

we just played a game I called
  Pass the Willow.

According to the rest of my family, I won.  

So anyway, I completed a Sally List item with no time to spare. Honey's family arrived Saturday morning to begin the process of packing them for the move.  We had a wonderful evening, even though we kept them here so late that we had a Weeping Willow on our hands by the end.

I'll miss them.

I won't pretend I didn't cry before they left. I tried to explain to them just what it meant to me to have someone love a child the way that they love mine, but in truth, God will just show them in His own way and in His own time. Some day, their little one will need to be loved, and God will send the healer and the honey.

And then, they will know.

In the meantime, I think baby Willow will be in good hands. After all, she's named for a tree... planted by the water.