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“Buttons may be tiny. Delicate, even. But they fasten together the fabric of an entire garment. The fabric wear day in and day out, the mundane cotton blouse and the lacy wedding dress. The fabric, the seams, that cover us, warm us, protect us. Binding dream to dream, story to story, but mostly, death to life.
With a particular kind of beauty that rises from the dust. The resurrection life of a second story, of the breath that mends us.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
With a particular kind of beauty that rises from the dust. The resurrection life of a second story, of the breath that mends us.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
“Inside the shop, a blond woman reached for a peach silk number on display. What Millie would give to go inside the store and let her own fingers graze the fabric of that gown.
Layers of peach silk draped down the back of the dress, then fell into a line of buttons along the fitted waistline and hips. The whole gown was like a summer dream.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
Layers of peach silk draped down the back of the dress, then fell into a line of buttons along the fitted waistline and hips. The whole gown was like a summer dream.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
“What if even then, God had plans for a second garden? Another tree, and another chance to reach out and accept the abundance of life? What if in Eden, God was planning Gethsemane?"
The question echoed through Lucy, growing in power with each reverberation within her soul.
She held a flower in her hands. The sweet, exotic perfume floated deep into Lucy's heart---carrying Ms. Beth's words right along beside it. Lucy hesitated, allowing the words to take effect. "Are you circling a closed Eden, or have you chosen to step into Gethsemane, through the open gate?"
Lucy blinked. She had never thought of it like that.
"Maybe what you thought was a closed gate meant to punish you is actually God's way of protecting you from remaining in a place where you won't and can't receive His life."
The truth washed Lucy's heart with color. As it brushed over the harsh edges with water, watercolor blooms began to blend one into the other, filling her with understanding.
Lucy's heart swelled as the long-dry soil soaked up this water.
"Where you're preoccupied with your failures and your fears and the desire to preserve all you might lose, God has a plan to preserve something else. To root you in a place where life can grow within you once more, freely and abundantly. A garden of death for a garden of life, where through His own resurrection Jesus returns all that was stolen.”
― Paint and Nectar
The question echoed through Lucy, growing in power with each reverberation within her soul.
She held a flower in her hands. The sweet, exotic perfume floated deep into Lucy's heart---carrying Ms. Beth's words right along beside it. Lucy hesitated, allowing the words to take effect. "Are you circling a closed Eden, or have you chosen to step into Gethsemane, through the open gate?"
Lucy blinked. She had never thought of it like that.
"Maybe what you thought was a closed gate meant to punish you is actually God's way of protecting you from remaining in a place where you won't and can't receive His life."
The truth washed Lucy's heart with color. As it brushed over the harsh edges with water, watercolor blooms began to blend one into the other, filling her with understanding.
Lucy's heart swelled as the long-dry soil soaked up this water.
"Where you're preoccupied with your failures and your fears and the desire to preserve all you might lose, God has a plan to preserve something else. To root you in a place where life can grow within you once more, freely and abundantly. A garden of death for a garden of life, where through His own resurrection Jesus returns all that was stolen.”
― Paint and Nectar
“The blush peach, silk dress was layered with cream lace over the bodice and hemline. Most arresting was the stunning cape that Harper imagined to be from the 1940's.
They just didn't make dresses like that anymore.
Actually, they didn't make dresses like it back then, either.
It was exquisite. One of a kind.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
They just didn't make dresses like that anymore.
Actually, they didn't make dresses like it back then, either.
It was exquisite. One of a kind.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
“A trellis filled with roses arched above the patio, leading to a winding garden path made out of stones that Lucy wanted to skip along. Flowers in reds and pinks and whites and purples bloomed from the curved edges of the yard, so beautiful they reminded Lucy of something out of Eliza's paintings.”
― Paint and Nectar
― Paint and Nectar
“So Eliza walked the path to East Bay Street that summer evening alone, wearing a scoop-neck black dress and her hair in Victory Rolls so that she felt like a dark-haired Ingrid Bergman in that new movie Notorious.”
― Paint and Nectar
― Paint and Nectar
“If you want to sprout roots, my dear, then tend them carefully. Roses are fragile before they're strong. It's as true for plants as it is for life.”
― Paint and Nectar
― Paint and Nectar
“She loved Franklin as the color of wildflowers on a summer's day. She may be Red, but he was all the others and she would see him every time she saw the blending blur of brightly colored petals waving in the breeze.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
― The Dress Shop on King Street
“From the beginning, I have been working between the seams. Where you have ripped, I have mended. When you have torn, I have sewn you. Stitching death to resurrection, failure to dreams, hurt to healing. I never throw out a fabric because it needs repairing.
You've spent your life on the other side of the seams, thinking all the if-only's. But there will always be another section to piece. Another hole that needs mending. So long as you live, you will have loose stitches---don't avoid them. Come and exchange them for strong seams.
Keep the fabric of your dreams.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
You've spent your life on the other side of the seams, thinking all the if-only's. But there will always be another section to piece. Another hole that needs mending. So long as you live, you will have loose stitches---don't avoid them. Come and exchange them for strong seams.
Keep the fabric of your dreams.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
“For now, she would dance among the garden.
When azaleas bloom in winter.
When hurricanes come in fall.
Maybe the paint was not so much these out-of-season moments, but more what was growing in between them. The clumsy grasp to keep summer's blooms in winter would inevitably fail. And yet hope always came rising up, resurrected from the frozen ground.
For as garden turns to garden, flowers turn to dust, and glory goes to glory, the changes are within us.
And maybe beauty's greatest achievement isn't in the staying... but that in its return, again and again, it paints the eternal---all the beautiful things that will never fade.”
― Paint and Nectar
When azaleas bloom in winter.
When hurricanes come in fall.
Maybe the paint was not so much these out-of-season moments, but more what was growing in between them. The clumsy grasp to keep summer's blooms in winter would inevitably fail. And yet hope always came rising up, resurrected from the frozen ground.
For as garden turns to garden, flowers turn to dust, and glory goes to glory, the changes are within us.
And maybe beauty's greatest achievement isn't in the staying... but that in its return, again and again, it paints the eternal---all the beautiful things that will never fade.”
― Paint and Nectar
“The slightest sea breeze clung to the air as Peter and Harper walked the pathway along Charleston Harbor. A few dolphins played in the not-so-distant waves, and sunlight fell like glitter in shades of orange and pink against the water. And this---this---was Charleston.
All they needed was a front porch painted haint blue and a proverbial glass of sweet tea.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
All they needed was a front porch painted haint blue and a proverbial glass of sweet tea.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
“What is life, really, but a series of beautiful moments that seem tiny in the moment but so significant thereafter?”
― Christmas on King Street
― Christmas on King Street
“If I can’t eat cookies and keep a man interested, then he’s not a man I want around.”
― Paint and Nectar
― Paint and Nectar
“Brokenness abounds—it is the state of this world.” She patted the stitches once more with her wrinkled hand. “But if we look hard enough, we can find spaces, pierced by a needle. When threaded together, they create something beautiful—a story, our story, and through the threads and the holes, we grow.”
― Where the Last Rose Blooms
― Where the Last Rose Blooms
“Adventures that may not take me to Paris, but in their own way, may take me beyond it—perhaps to not see the Louvre, but to make an art out of living and loving. And in the act of each, to wake one day and realize I didn’t miss out by never seeing the museum. To grow old having been busy in the terrifying, gratifying, and magical work of investing myself in others.”
― Christmas at the Inn
― Christmas at the Inn
“But the sunlight had faded, and now she would enjoy the twilight-turned-evening from the beauty of the garden.
Her garden. Was it even possible that might be true? She still thought of the space as belonging to her mother. That she might now possess the place herself was at once an honor and an overwhelming responsibility: this place where red-and-pink camellia petals fluttered to the ground as though creating a carpet for fairies.”
― Paint and Nectar
Her garden. Was it even possible that might be true? She still thought of the space as belonging to her mother. That she might now possess the place herself was at once an honor and an overwhelming responsibility: this place where red-and-pink camellia petals fluttered to the ground as though creating a carpet for fairies.”
― Paint and Nectar
“Alice marveled at the flowers. Huge, fragrant, God-praising blooms. That rose, transplanted and broken, giving beauty to this ground. The dirt and the seed, the flood and the flame, all writing a story of where we belong. Where roses grow, but more than that. Where roses bloom, and where life---full and glorious at its crescendo---finds its meaning over and over again.
Maybe the important thing was the same root bound them through any circumstance and any ground. And after a few months, or maybe a few years, the rose would bloom again.
The rose always bloomed again.
Because somewhere, deep within that plant, was life---abundantly.”
― Where the Last Rose Blooms
Maybe the important thing was the same root bound them through any circumstance and any ground. And after a few months, or maybe a few years, the rose would bloom again.
The rose always bloomed again.
Because somewhere, deep within that plant, was life---abundantly.”
― Where the Last Rose Blooms
“That rosebush, poetically speaking, was sort of like our hope for the future. It'd been ripped up and transplanted, shaken and moved around. And yet, as Rose said, it bloomed. And will continue blooming still.
From the broken ground, somehow those delicate, vibrant petals came anew, offering a fragrance that might catch on the breeze and carry down the street to where the bluebirds flew.”
― Where the Last Rose Blooms
From the broken ground, somehow those delicate, vibrant petals came anew, offering a fragrance that might catch on the breeze and carry down the street to where the bluebirds flew.”
― Where the Last Rose Blooms
“Life didn't come until Ezekiel spoke to the breath."
"What does that mean?" Harper hesitated. She had the strangest sensation of breathlessness, like after a long hike into high altitude just before cresting a mountain.
"Well, it's resurrection. From the ashes. From the dust. From the dead things. Your problem is, you're looking at the bones instead of breathing." Daddy sighed. "Maybe your dream was never about a shop at all. Maybe there's a second command, Harper Girl. Another place where you're supposed to breathe life."
Harper looked down to the blouse in her lap. To the thread and the needle.
She thought of Millie's buttons.
And then hope---glorious and beautiful hope---filled the landscape of her heart as the sunrise scatters new light over the mountaintops.
Of course! Why hadn't she seen it before? All this time, she had been focused on the store. But her gifting, her dream, was so much more than that.
Her gifting was repairing the broken places. Mending forgotten tears and weak seams. Breathing life back into the fabrics that told stories, into the buttons that bind them.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
"What does that mean?" Harper hesitated. She had the strangest sensation of breathlessness, like after a long hike into high altitude just before cresting a mountain.
"Well, it's resurrection. From the ashes. From the dust. From the dead things. Your problem is, you're looking at the bones instead of breathing." Daddy sighed. "Maybe your dream was never about a shop at all. Maybe there's a second command, Harper Girl. Another place where you're supposed to breathe life."
Harper looked down to the blouse in her lap. To the thread and the needle.
She thought of Millie's buttons.
And then hope---glorious and beautiful hope---filled the landscape of her heart as the sunrise scatters new light over the mountaintops.
Of course! Why hadn't she seen it before? All this time, she had been focused on the store. But her gifting, her dream, was so much more than that.
Her gifting was repairing the broken places. Mending forgotten tears and weak seams. Breathing life back into the fabrics that told stories, into the buttons that bind them.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
“But if God gave you a dream, you’d better listen. You just remember that God knows the how and the why, though the when may be frustrating. ’Cause, Harper, if I know one thing about life, it ain’t always Jubilee.” Daddy switched the lamp off, and moonlight flooded the room. “No matter how long it takes, sweet girl, when your great tide comes in, make sure your nets are good and ready.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
― The Dress Shop on King Street
“She heard the twitter of the bluebirds whose families had lived here for decades and longer, and she saw one out-of season, beautifully pure gardenia. And the fragrance of it was so sweet, so innocent, that it was fairy dust to her senses. Smelling it sent her tumbling back and forth through time.
And she was at once a young woman dancing in William's arms and an older woman returning to Eden with a new appreciation for its hard-won innocence.”
― Paint and Nectar
And she was at once a young woman dancing in William's arms and an older woman returning to Eden with a new appreciation for its hard-won innocence.”
― Paint and Nectar
“I thought wanting something more eclectic would make me easy to please, but when I explained my vision, most of the places we've visited have looked at me like I've got four eyes."
"Roses and babies' breath." Alice nodded. "Maybe the occasional daisy or ranunculus. Although I do love ranunculus. They've got such a whimsy about them.”
― Where the Last Rose Blooms
"Roses and babies' breath." Alice nodded. "Maybe the occasional daisy or ranunculus. Although I do love ranunculus. They've got such a whimsy about them.”
― Where the Last Rose Blooms
“But you also can’t ignore the thing that keeps your soul alive, because I believe God puts that sort of stuff in us for a reason. That He speaks to us through it. God is faithful, and when He calls you to something, He will also give you the means, even if it doesn’t look as expected.”
― The Dress Shop on King Street
― The Dress Shop on King Street
“Beauty arrests our attention to look upward. It reminds us that there are things in life, such as love and the divine, that we long for so ardently we know---even if we only know it for a fleeting moment---that our yearnings are far deeper than our eyes can see. And that's what faith is, I think."
William situated his elbow against the ground and propped his fist against his cheek. "That's really profound."
"Thank you," Eliza smiled. "That's why I like to include bluebirds in my paintings. They're a reminder that while beauty may be fickle in its coming and going, there's a permanence in the impression it leaves on our hearts. There are roots growing within us that sustain its wings. And maybe that, really, makes beauty the greatest witness to glory there is.”
― Paint and Nectar
William situated his elbow against the ground and propped his fist against his cheek. "That's really profound."
"Thank you," Eliza smiled. "That's why I like to include bluebirds in my paintings. They're a reminder that while beauty may be fickle in its coming and going, there's a permanence in the impression it leaves on our hearts. There are roots growing within us that sustain its wings. And maybe that, really, makes beauty the greatest witness to glory there is.”
― Paint and Nectar
“Contentment and joy and grief all blurred together---and in a way, Eliza had become the color. And the world, the water, so that all the pieces of her blended in unexpected ways as the canvas was turned a little to the left, a little to the right, and the pink dripped down into the blue, down into the yellow, down into the brown, and so on; life and loss and harvest from season to season. A garden's blooms, continually returning for another encore until the circularity of it all becomes in itself a promise through the winter and the spring and the summer and the fall. Always turning, always returning color to the ground and color to the sky.”
― Paint and Nectar
― Paint and Nectar
“In what was recognizably a Lowcountry sunset, trees and swamp and flowers blended together by watercolors. Rather than detailing the scene, this piece evoked emotion---with literal drips of color blending past with present, the seen with the unseen. Twilight filled the sky, but the dimming sun flooded the piece with unexpected color and illuminated two figures dancing.”
― Paint and Nectar
― Paint and Nectar
“They were able to get so many strawflowers last week, they'd kept some for arrangements and had dried others to use in wreaths. Strawflowers held their color despite being dried, and the wreaths always turned out beautiful. Time consuming, yes, but beautiful. Great for the transition from winter to spring. Alice once saw an Etsy listing that called similar wreaths everlasting strawflowers, and she liked the phrasing so much she'd thought of them that way ever since.”
― Where the Last Rose Blooms
― Where the Last Rose Blooms
“Your father and I both agree some of the world's realities are simply too harsh for a woman's mind."
Perhaps because a woman's heart was fierce enough to fight them, Clara thought.”
― Where the Last Rose Blooms
Perhaps because a woman's heart was fierce enough to fight them, Clara thought.”
― Where the Last Rose Blooms
“The fragrance of the gardenias along the porch carried on the breeze. The blooms were always sweetest from freshly opened buds. But they had to fall, they had to change, for the roots to grow. So that next season, more buds would open, and the fragrance would spread even farther.
Gardenias. She had never painted gardenias before.
But they bloomed all at once as she'd never noticed them blooming years prior, and the fragrance was so alluring that the smell of it matched the delicate strokes of her smallest paintbrush, and it was the first of May and the first of so many other things, she was sure.”
― Paint and Nectar
Gardenias. She had never painted gardenias before.
But they bloomed all at once as she'd never noticed them blooming years prior, and the fragrance was so alluring that the smell of it matched the delicate strokes of her smallest paintbrush, and it was the first of May and the first of so many other things, she was sure.”
― Paint and Nectar
“If looks could kill, Declan would've been deader than the crustaceans in this evening's she-crab soup.”
― Paint and Nectar
― Paint and Nectar
