This was originally posted in June, 2006 

I went to a tea party today. An honest to goodness, not just a 3 year old’s imagination tea party. Never done that before. A parent in our preschool put it on for our preschool administrator, who is moving this month. It was a fun way to send her off.

During this little tea party (yes, there were other drinks available, don’t worry), I got the chance to chat with some of the other mothers whose children attend the preschool.  We were doing the typical “How many kids do you have” routine, and one woman seemed a little surprised that she was the only one at the table who wasn’t a mother of an only child. “You mean, I’m the only one who has 5?”

Yeah, you’re definitely the only one.

We chatted some more, and then she said, “So, Heather, do you think you will have any more children? Do you want more children?”

 I took a deep breath and said, “Well, you know, we would love to have more children, but at this point, God hasn’t chosen to bless us with any more, so….” and I shrugged.

She look very intently at me and said, “God closes wombs, and He opens them, too. He opened Sarah’s, and He can open yours. Is this the desire of your heart, to have more children? Then He will open your womb, I promise. I pronounce that blessing upon you in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.”

Ok then.

Admittedly, I’m a bit of a novice when it comes to tea parties, but does one usually get blessings at these things?

I tried to laugh off what she said, especially since there was sort of an awkward silent pause at our table as she pronounced this blessing, and I said, half laughing, “Are you a prophetess?”

She did not laugh. She smiled, though, and said, “No, but I am a servant of God, and you have a righteous desire to have children, and God grants us the righteous desire of our hearts, according to our faith. You just need to build up your faith, girl. And I’m going to give you my email address so you can email me when you are pregnant. Oh, I can’t wait to get that message!” And she smiled again and got up to get her purse, presumably to get something to write her email address on.

At this point, I got up to follow her, and said, in a low voice once we were away from the main table, “You know, it’s kind of complicated”, and I explained to her some of the medical issues I have been facing that would make getting pregnant, well, complicated.

She didn’t even bat an eye when I hastily poured out my lengthy medical history to her, an all but perfect stranger. She just said, “Complicated for you, maybe, but not for God. He heals people all the time. Here’s my card, this is my address. Email me when you’re pregnant.”

As the tea party wound down, and the guest of honor got ready to leave, this same woman called the whole party into the main room and said, “Hey, gather round so we can give Karen a blessing.” All of the women stood in a circle, held hands, and this woman offered a beautiful blessing in the name of Jesus Christ on the guest of honor.  Although the prayer circle thing was not exactly conventional, and was, I think, more of an impromptu thing done to connect the women in the room, the whole thing was actually quite moving.

Not a single woman in the room besides me was Mormon. And yet we had an earnest and heartfelt discussion about God, the likes of which I have rarely experienced beyond a formal church setting. And a woman I never met pronounced a blessing on me, not because she was a prophetess, but because, as she said, she was just a servant of God, proclaiming His works and His love. And I was in awe of her faith. I mean, maybe she just had a gift with words and struggles as much as anybody, but her confidence in that moment came from somewhere, and I’d like to think it was from God. And it sure felt good to be around her. That can’t be bad.

I thought, We need more prayer circles in Relief Society. And maybe more tea parties, too. Celestial Seasonings, anyone?

UPDATE

I kept that woman’s card. 

I emailed her today.

Somehow I don’t think she’ll be all that surprised to learn that I am 35 weeks pregnant, due to give birth to a baby girl on June 11th. 

Sorry I didn’t tell y’all earlier.  Can we still be friends?