HDG: Love is in the Details

If you’ve been reading my blog very long, you’ve probably noticed me referring to my Faith Sharing Girls… and now you get to see their cute mugs for yourselves! Meg, Susie, Deb and Leslie are phenomenal women who show up at my house every other week to participate in faith sharing, chatting, eating and just being all around great friends. I’m so incredibly blessed.

This is a photo of Susie’s mom, Linda, and Meg. Linda is the one who gets my groceries for me every week and puts up with Riley’s constant longing for attention every time she walks through the door. Because Meg is the only one in the group that doesn’t have a May birthday [Leslie and I were actually born on the same day], she and Linda decided to do a lovely surprise birthday dinner for the rest of us.

I was in on it, of course, since it was at my house, but the other three girls didn’t have a clue. Being in on it was kind of a present to me, because I SO love being in the know. :)

Linda used to run a bed and breakfast before she moved to town, and showed up at my house with her own dishes, silverware, dainty glasses and everything. She loves collecting antiques and has the loveliest things… and it certainly changed the look of my table.

The linens were given to her by her friend Dixie, who had brought them back from a trip to Italy. Trust me, when I found that out I was tempted to move my plate to my lap so anything spilled would land on my jeans instead of the table cloth. That Linda is obviously a trusting woman.

I’m sure some of you are looking at that table and noticing the fine stitching on the linens, the value of the plates or stemware, or the delicate pattern on the fork. And they are precious. But what I see is the love in the details.

It’s present in the way Linda and Meg thought about us, how they took joy in making us feel special. How each table piece was chosen, not to display Linda’s pretty things, but to display the affection she feels for each of us who love her daughter.

Each one of my friends that sat at the table that night have the same qualities about them. They love in the details. They show up at my house every other week, not because they don’t have someplace better to go, but because they don’t want to be someplace better without me. When we sit in my red room to go through the chapter we’ve read, they sit in the spots where they know I’m not comfortable and leave the comfortable chair for me.

They leave their busy lives and faster pace behind them at the door and settle into my slower moving way of life. They don’t rush me if I’m out of breath while I’m talking and they fill me in on conversations they all understand because they see each other and out and about, but I miss while I’m here in my home. They show their love in the details, and they do it in an unassuming way that could easily go unnoticed.

But I notice. Every little bit of it. And I am grateful.

Susie was giving me a hard time because I was taking photos of everything… the food, the salt and pepper shakers, the linens. I was capturing each detail to show all of you, and also so I would never forget them myself. Some may simply see a plate of food, but I see the love in the details.

And apparently, so does Suz. I loaded photos from her camera onto my computer later that night so I could see pictures from a friend’s baby shower I had missed. She took detailed photos of another friend’s new home, of people and decorations and… yes, the plate of food they were served.

My first thought: “Oh, I’ve taught that girl well!” But really, I haven’t taught her a thing. She was just loving me with the details, as they are all so good at doing.

A friend is one who strengthens you with prayers, blesses you with love and encourages you with hope.”

I can’t imagine any details more important to friendship than prayers, love and encouragement, which is why this canvas fits my friends so perfectly. I’m passing it along to one of you today so you can hang it on your wall as a reminder of how to be a great friend, or pass it along to someone who has been all of those things to you. I’m lucky I didn’t need the quote to teach me a thing… I learned it from the best of them.

To win today’s canvas, leave a comment telling me how someone has shown you love by paying attention to the details. Make sure you comment before midnight CST, and I’ll post the winner tomorrow. [Only one comment per person, please.]