A few weeks ago, Aubrey earned a reward for completing all her chores on her chore chart without complaining and without me asking her to. She was able to choose from a few bigger rewards and she chose a special date with Mom! I had been wanting to take Aubrey on a special date to start a program called "Secret Keeper Girl - 8 Great Dates For You and Your Daughter". A friend, that used it with her daughter, gave me this book. After reading through it, I thought it was a great idea and great timing for the date!
Aubrey wanted to get dressed up and she asked me to curl her hair and paint her nails. Now painting nails is a stretch for this country girl, but it was so much fun to get all dressed up with Aubrey! While I was curling her hair, we listened to the Secret Keeper Girl CD which told a story about a tea cup...
There once was a couple who use to go to England to shop in the finest of stores. There favorite thing to shop for was fine china. One day they walked into this little store and they saw in that store the most magnificent tea cup they'd ever seen! As the lady in the store handed it to them, she explained that it was indeed very special. As they stood there, admiring the cups beauty, suddenly it began to talk! "So you think I'm beautiful?"
Well as you can imagine the couple was so shocked, they almost dropped the little tea cup! "Whoa, whoa, let me explain. I haven't always been this beautiful tea cup. There was a time when I was just a big round ball of mushy clay. My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over. I yelled, "Let me alone!" But he only smiled and said, "Not yet." Then I was placed on this spinning wheel. I was spun round and round and round. "Stop it! I'm getting dizzy!", I screamed. But the master only nodded, "Not yet." Suddenly he took me off of that spinning wheel and placed me in this hot oven! I've never felt such discomfort. I wondered why would he want to burn me and I yelled and I knocked on the door, but I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips, "Not yet." Finally the door opened and he put me on the shelf and I began to cool. "There, that's better", I said. But just as I began to feel great relief, my master began to brush and paint all over me. Oh the fumes were just horrible! "Oh stop it, please", I cried. He shook his head, "Not yet." Suddenly when I thought it couldn't get any worse, he put me back into an oven, but this one was even hotter than the first. It was twice as hot. I just knew I would die. I begged this time. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried, knocking on the door. All the time, I could see him through the door, shaking his head and simply saying, "Not yet." There was no hope.
I knew I would never make it. I was just about ready to give up, when suddenly the door opened and he took me out, and he held up a mirror in front of me saying, "Look at yourself." I did. That's not me. It couldn't possibly be me. Why I'm, I'm beautiful! My master began to explain, "I know it hurts to be rolled and patted, but if I had just left you there, you would have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on that wheel, but if I would have stopped, you would have crumbled. I know it was hot in the oven, but if I hadn't put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you, but if I hadn't done that you would never had hardened and you would have no color in your life. And if I hadn't placed you into that second hotter oven, you wouldn't have survived long, because the hardness wouldn't have held, but now you are finished. Now you are everything I dreamed you would be. Now you are MY MASTERPIECE!
I will have the image in my mind for a very long time of our sweet red headed daughter looking in the mirror with a huge smile while I pampered her and listened to this story.
Here we are all dressed up and ready to go. Aubrey wore her Kuspuk that Grammy Cakes made for her. This is what a lot of people here wear when they want to get dressed up. We had several people ask us why we were all dressed up. People don't get dressed up very often around here!
Sweet kisses for my beautiful oldest daughter!
The "Secret Keeper Girl" book suggested that we go to an exclusive little tea house. This presented a bit of a problem for us, considering we have one place in the entire town to go for anything resembling a restaurant. It is called "The Coffee Shop." They serve lots of different types of coffee, milkshakes, and usually about two different choices of meals. I have to admit after a year and a half of being here, this was my first time ordering from the coffee shop! It is basically a house with a back bedroom, kitchen, and tables filling the living room area. We made due with what is here and brought our own tea cups (that a friend gave to us as a special present for this date). Aubrey ordered a Shirley Temple instead of tea and a milkshake. I decided to give in and have a milkshake since it was something special to do with Aubrey, but I paid for it with a migraine afterwards. So we didn't actually drink tea out of our tea cups but it was fun just to do something special together.
We evaluated each other and ourselves on if we are a Styrofoam cup, a ceramic mug, or a priceless piece of china in different areas of our life and talked about ways we could improve in our relationships with others and our relationship with God.
Here is Aubrey filling out the evaluation in her Secret Keeper Journal.
We talked about the different types of cups and how we can be compared to a tea cup in the making. There are times when we wonder why is God putting us in the oven and turning up the heat so high? He's doing it so he can perfect us and make us into a wonderful MASTERPIECE! God is our master craftsman, our potter and He is working on making us into the most beautiful, the most perfect "tea cups".
After our time at The Coffee Shop, we drove out the road to talk and spend more time together. Places to go when you are dressed up and it is cold outside are kind of limited! We stopped and enjoyed the sun and endured the cold long enough in order to take this picture of Aubrey with the frozen Yukon River behind her. It was a beautiful day with a wonderful girl!
The sun was glaring off the snow so Aubrey could barely look at the camera!
My dear sweet Aubrey, you are a MASTERPIECE created by GOD!
And so are all the rest of you!
"Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand." Isaiah 64:8