A Fine China Plate

I’ve been reading through Gentle Passages by Robin Jones Gunn. It is a book of ideas to make our daughters’ transition into womanhood a special time. My daughters are all still young, but my oldest is developing such an emotional maturity, and I can see that the days of her young girlhood will fly by quickly.

I put one of the ideas into practice last week. I began by reading a story from the book. Although I can not do justice to Robin’s beautiful telling of the story, I will summarize it here…

Young Natalie, Robin’s eleven year old neighbor, was upset that her parents would not allow her to go to a particular movie with a group of her friends. Natalie felt that her parents were overprotective and could not understand her. Robin had been making chocolate covered cherries, and asked if Natalie would like to eat some with her while they talked. Robin then proceeded to dig through the garbage can and pulled out some paper plates stained from hot dogs and baked beans! When Natalie asked if she had any other plates, Robin agreed that dirty paper plates really were not suitable to serving her guest. She went to a china cabinet and pulled out a beautiful china plate. She explained that these were very special plates of which she was “probably too protective.” Natalie agreed that Robin was right to be careful of such valuable plates. At this moment, Robin went on to say, “that’s why I want to keep them clean and ready so I can use them to serve others.”

The story continued with the conversation between Robin and Natalie, and Natalie came to an understanding that she was like the china plate. Her parents were protective of her because they wanted her to be kept clean and set apart, so that she would be ready to serve others.

Robin and Natalie read together from the Bible, 2 Timothy 2:21 “If you stay away from sin you will be like one of these dishes made of purest gold – the very best in the house- so that Christ himself can use you for his highest purposes.”

After reading this story with my own daughter, we had a heartfelt mother/daughter talk, and then I presented her with a china plate. She had helped me choose the plate while shopping the day before, but had no idea what it would be used for. I wrote a note to her with permanent marker on the back of the plate, and referenced 2 Timothy 2:21. We have the plate displayed in our china cupboard for now, but I think we may put it in her own room. I hope that she will share the meaning of the plate many times over the years and be an encouragement to her friends who need to be reminded that God wants them to be fine china plates too.

An added note… this is the first thing that SweetPea got to use her china plate for:

Isn’t it just the cutest cake ever?

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