The Tea Set
THE TEA SET
For my sixteenth birthday, I received a beautiful tea set. I never owned anything so beautiful before. I don’t know how my parents could afford to buy it for me. Just one year later I had nothing else but the sugar bowl and the milk jug. I’m sure the set never was used.
We lived in a house on the east bank of Sri Lanka’s longest river, the Mahaweli Ganga, at 1060 Peradeniya Road, Kandy.
Each evening I called from the balcony facing the river, “Come and look at the sky! Come and look at the sky!” Whoever was at home rushed out to see what was going on. The ever-changing colors of the sunset expressed a beauty that no artist can capture. The wind blowing through bamboo groves by the river sang me to sleep each night. The numerous birds' chatter and whistling woke me each morning.
There were numerous changes in my life throughout that year. What happened to the cups was just a culmination of everything else.
Seven weeks after my birthday, just a few days before the twins turned twenty, I was close to death. Appendicitis nearly killed me. The surgeon, Doctor Joseph, told my mother that I was knocking on heaven’s door while he was operating on me.
I don’t remember getting as far as the golden gates, so I have no stories of going there. Of course, it would have been fantastic to have seen the incredible city; to have seen Jesus in all his glory; to have met my oldest brother and my grandpa, both of whom I only knew through stories. That meeting is yet to be.
I survived.
The next crash came at the end of that year. I had taken the final exams at my school. There was no excuse to live in Kandy any longer. The visa-regulations for foreigners had tightened. If we lived on Dad’s Gospel Ship, we would not need a visa. My pleas and my tears could not change the hard facts. I was a foreigner, even though I felt I belonged in Ceylon.
I had to leave the place I had called home the last six years. There was no opportunity to say goodbye to all my friends. Everything worth taking to Finland was packed in large oil barrels. Everything else was sold at an auction or given away. Even my mother’s beautiful crystal bowl, a gift she had received for her 50th birthday six years earlier was auctioned away. That is another story.
Living on that ship was no holiday trip. I was miserable. Finally, even that link to Sri Lanka was cut. We traveled to Ernakulam in Kerala, South India, on the Gospel ship. From there we continued by train to Mumbai (Bombay) and boarded a P&O passenger liner, SS Stratheden, for London. My gloom did not lift when we disembarked on my seventeenth birthday.
About ten days later we arrived in Helsinki. We opened the barrels carrying the treasures brought from Ceylon.
Every teacup and saucer was broken. I still have the only two pieces of the set that were unharmed. I did not grieve for the broken cups and saucers. My grief was far more profound.
On my eighteenth birthday, I received a lovely set of white coffee cups.
Something better
than teacups and coffee cups
was changing me from the inside.
That too is another story.The words of the following song express my feelings as I left Finland the day after my eighteenth birthday to study nursing in England.
I Will Serve Thee
I will serve Thee because I love Thee
You have given life to me.
I was nothing before You found me,
You have given life to me.
Heartaches, broken pieces,
Ruined lives are why You died on Calvary.
Your touch was what I longed for,
You have given life to me. You have given life—to me.
Author Bill Gaither
Comments
Thank you for sharing this story from the depths of your heart! How precious of the Lord that He has given you an object lesson to hold onto all these years that painted a picture of what He did in your heart. I loved that song when I was a teenager, so I had to go listen to it tonight. It was just what I needed. Blessings to you!