Forget me not

I had a birthday this week. This is one of the gifts I received. It’s from the Royal Albert Flower of the Month series and adorned with forget-me-nots.

To make a silly blog confession, I have always wanted to own this cup and saucer. I have something of a “thing” for fine china, particularly fine china that is blue and white, so this seemed like a cup and saucer I had to have. But I have always resisted getting it, because, the truth is, I was always hoping someone special might one day buy it for me. So I never wanted anyone else to. In my mind forget-me-nots belonged to romance.

But then twenty years went by and no-one special came along, and then Royal Albert discontinued this series, and I missed it altogether. (There's a lesson in that somewhere.) So now I have a second-hand one that I bought on ebay myself, and for which I got the money back from my Mum. Sigh. Life is full of little disappointments.

I have given up the hope of there being a man who will take joy in bringing me joy by giving me gifts – or time, or words of affirmation, or any other of the languages of love. (And I have on occasion stretched my neck out and given things to men, but all that came my way for that was humiliation and trouble, because obviously I chose the wrong man, and it is a better idea to wait for men to do the giving first.)

But I shall use this teacup – and I know it is only a silly teacup – to remind myself that God does not forget me, and that he gave himself up for me, at great cost to himself, out of love (and took the sodding initiative, rather than sitting back waiting for me to do it all or first prove my own affections – as I’ve said before, it is little wonder people are Arminian, if relationships between men and women are supposed to reflect that of Christ and the church).

I shall use it to remind myself to forget not God either, and all his many benefits (Psalm 103:2) – one of the small ones being the luxury of fancy fine china!

Forget-me-nots are sweet, unpretentious little flowers, that grow in road-side ditches. I like them for that.