Posts Tagged: "Dedication"

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Thankful Notes

Today is my big work day. It started early, just me and Camper heading out for the store and Starbucks and then the church. We would be staying through the end of the evening, so I was hauling clothing and dog supplies for our 13 hour non-stop day.

Because my day was long and I am only now just sitting down, I won’t write much at all—but I will share this one story…

On Friday, our friend Julie took her nephew Jayden, whom she has raised since he was born, to the courthouse. It was adoption day. After so much time and a roller coaster of challenges, it was finally legal.

Yesterday, we went to a party celebrating Jayden’s adoption. And today at church it was Jayden’s dedication.

At our church, we will never do mass assembly-line dedications or baptisms because we want to take time to pause and celebrate individuals, share their stories, and let that moment be about them.

So today we took time with Julie and her family and little Jayden. It was tender and sweet and holy and good.

We had a little something extra planned for them—because of the special weekend with his legal adoption… there would be flowers for Julie and a big teddy bear for Jayden, to be brought up by her friend Leslie.

After the words shared and the prayer given over Jayden and Julie, we stood there on stage and smiled as Jayden pointed to his pictures on the big screens and said, “Look Mommy, Jayden!”

And then Leslie came up with the flowers and the teddy bear and she gave Julie a big hug. Before she left the stage, I asked her to take the microphone and explain why she was up there. Through tears, Leslie… Read More