blue

I have been dreaming about decorating a little girl’s room for some time now…18 years to be exact. When I was pregnant with my first child, we didn’t know the gender of the baby. We chose a neutral Noah’s Ark bedroom set to put on our baby registry. Our baby girl seemed to be delighted with her bedroom. This also worked for our next baby, a boy who was born 18 months later. Areli and Cole shared a room and the animals in muted colors worked great for them.

However, when Areli turned three she became a big girl almost overnight. She was totally potty-trained and moved into a big bed. As I searched for the perfect comforter set, I began to dream of decorating a room for her. Perhaps soon we would move to a bigger home and Areli could have her own room, a GIRL’S room!

I found a lovely comforter and sheet set called, “Mariposa.” It had butterflies on a purple and yellow back ground. For the next few years I played with decorating ideas. I would paint imaginary walls in my mind, first bright yellow, then lavender. I would experiment with different colors of curtains. I decided that I would frame the adorable Anne Geddes baby butterflies in white frames and put them up all over the walls. The most beautiful little girl’s room began to take shape, and I was so proud of myself. Areli was going to be thrilled!

The years passed and we never did get a home big enough to give Areli her own room. We never had the time or money to paint walls and decorate, and then we rented for several years. Boring white walls became the norm for us.

Finally we moved into our own home and Areli got the largest bedroom…to share with two brothers. Eventually the brothers moved out and a sister moved in. There was even a baby in there a few times. Yet we never seemed able to patch the cracking walls and paint over the dull and faded yellow.

I still held on to my dream of a purple and yellow room for Areli. However, Areli was now growing up and developing her own dreams. I realized that purple, yellow, and butterflies had nothing to do with her dreams. She preferred green, blue, horses, football, and photography. She had developed tastes that were totally different from mine! How did this happen?

This is all that is left of my dreams.

A picture that is being stored in the attic and faded old sheets that used to be purple.

This year Areli turned 18. She has grown into a beautiful and capable young woman. She is so very like me, yet so totally different.

She has different tastes in books, movies, clothes, and interior decorating. She still loves green and blue and football and photography. She helps so much around our home. She loves and serves her family everyday with grace and endurance.

It was finally time for a bedroom makeover – ARELI STYLE!

Chris had a week off of work right around Areli’s 18^th birthday. He spent much of it fixing her walls, painting, and hanging window treatments and decorations.

Areli picked the color “Electric Lime.” When I saw it on the wall for the first time I thought, “Oh my! Was that really what Areli wanted?”

SHE LOVES IT! Her dream had become a reality! Now she has the perfect girl’s room in which to do her school work, hang out, and rest. She still has to share it with a younger sister, but I think she feels like it is finally truly a room for HER, designed by her.

Areli graduates from High School in less than two weeks. She has worked ahead and has already finished all of her classes with straight As. She is going to work on her photography over the summer and get a job in the fall. Her plan is to attend a Discipleship Training School with Youth With a Mission the following year. I am excited for her! The sky is the limit and the possibilities are endless. With all the missions organizations all over the world, she could do anything and go anywhere. Her future potential is boundless!

However, all this is very sad for a mom. When I think about my home without Areli in it, I just want to cry. How will I make it without her? She helps me so much with all the household duties and taking care of the younger children. More importantly, she is a wonderful friend, an oasis of womanly wisdom in a sea of boys. She is the person who always understands me. She is my companion when Chris is working long hours.

The other day I had a precious hour of free time before bed. I decided to spend it connecting with God, sitting on the love-seat in my bedroom. I was going to read and pray and write in my journal. When I entered, I found Areli sitting on my love seat, reading a book that I had always loved, and taking notes in her journal. I felt my heart swell with joy as I realized something. Areli had fully absorbed all I have tried to teach her. She has heeded my instruction, and she has also watched my life and followed my example. She has taken ownership of her faith and she deliberately seeks out truth. She has worked to learn and remember what is important.

She is so much like me yet so different from me…and so much better. My ceiling is her foundation. She is strong and mature…and almost ready to fly.

I want to whoop and holler in excitement for Areli…the successful efforts of my mothering! I want to curl up in a ball and sob for the same reason…for the beautiful “Electric Lime” room that will soon be half-way empty and for the vacant place in my heart.

I am so glad that we finally gave Areli that bedroom makeover that I had always been planning…even if it did take 18 years. Secretly I am hoping it might help her to stay a little longer, and beckon her to return to this safe haven again and again and again.

It all started in my parents’ basement; the part of the basement that was used for storage of boxes of old stuff, stacks of newspapers, flowerpots with dirt still in them, tomato stakes, and odds and ends.

I found this lovely example of blue and white china down there, and I claimed them as my own. I placed them in my room among my eclectic collection of all things I considered pretty as a young girl. It was one of the only decorations I took with me when I got married and moved into my first apartment. It took an honored place on my grandfather Beyer’s old bookshelf, one of the only actual pieces of furniture we owned in those early years.

Somehow that piece of china took hold in my mind as a representative of a happy home. I developed a picture of my dream home over the course the next few years. It was a big farm-house with a wrap around porch, a happy place for our happy family. The most important rooms of the house (the kitchen and dinning rooms) were painted a warm, sunny yellow and adorned with white trim and white shelves. And what graced those white shelves? Blue and white china!

We lived many years in rentals or in a home we thought we would soon sell. I lived with the Realtor beige and white, still seeing those yellow walls in my mind. In 2007 we purchased a nice home in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t a farm-house, but it was big with a porch in front. I didn’t have “THE dream home” or the yellow walls…or the white shelves, but I started to collect the china. My in-laws purchased my next few plates at an antique store for my birthday. I had nowhere to display them, so I carefully packed them away. I started picking up pieces here and there, at thrift stores or yard sales. A tea-cup with delicate blue flowers, a plate with a cozy cottage and a bridge, a pitcher with an unusual design of blue triangles. A dollar here, fifty cents there. Each one a treasure, each one unique, each one a representative of God’s goodness to me. He has the entire universe to run, yet I felt Him share my joy with each special find.

Some friends had a china cabinet in their basement that they didn’t use, and they offered it to us. I was overjoyed! I had a place to store my treasures where I could see them each day.

It was my birthday in February of 2010. That was the glorious year that IT happened! My husband bought me bright yellow paint! I could hardly believe my good fortune! Our weird sage/aqua walls in the kitchen and dinning room were going to be transformed to yellow! We still had many young children, so we had to prep and paint after they went to bed. We continued to paint until 3 o’clock in the morning. Chris was a trooper. I was high on excitement and hardly felt tired. I was getting my yellow walls!

It was quite a shock at first. It wondered if I had picked the correct yellow color. But the sun was shinning inside my home 24 hours a day, seven days a week! “Daffodil” yellow grew on me until I couldn’t keep from saying, “I just love this!” It is amazing how small things can make such a dramatic different. Slowly I acquired some white shelves and more blue and white china. Now I am surrounded by beauty everyday, and it has improved the quality of my life.

Some days I marvel at the fact that we are still dwelling here, in this beautiful home. We were close to foreclosure during the hard times. While we were living through those difficult months, we thought back to the miracle that this home was. We knew that God had given it to us, and we knew that He could take it away. Chris was walking on our porch one night, feeling the heartbreak of loss, when God spoke to him.

“This is YOUR home, and you will sell it when YOU want to.”

When Chris told me that, I was so touched by the loving heart of my Father. He owned everything, everywhere. He had bought our very lives with the blood of His son. He did the miracle to get us this house. Yet He said that it was ours, and that we could choose when we wanted to sell it!

God was true to His word and worked out the details so we could continue to own this house, our dream home! He has done many more miracles to enable us to put food on the table day after day, pay all our bills month after month, and go shopping for blue and white china year after year.

Each piece reminds me of His incredible concern for every small detail of my life. Here I am, living my dream! My husband doesn’t care a thing about blue and white china; but to me, it symbolizes the amazing, unending goodness of God.