May 14 – “A ‘Siah blessing”

 

 

It sure felt strange yesterday not going to Seaside for church.  Everything was covered.  Mike was set to preach.  I think his Mom was even coming to hear him.  Nice.  The pastor's class was going to bring in personal artifacts from their own trips around the world – the Middle East in particular – to share with each other.  I was sorry to miss that.  Music was ready to go and was certainly great as usual.  It's just different when we go somewhere else. 

 

But it was baby dedication day for Josiah, so we headed to LaMarque instead.  Mom was up and at 'em as well.  We didn't have to be there until 10:30, so she had some extra time to get moving.  Christina's Dad was there, and Jay and Fran came to give Mom some roses and stuck around for the service as well, so our clan took up a row and a half of spaces.  Kel said it was their biggest attendance in a while.  Hey, that's my grandson.  He deserves a big group. 

 

We almost didn't get the ceremony part in.  The music leader forgot to insert it, so Kel had to remind him when they took a break to welcome visitors.  We finally got started, though.  Kel did the introduction, then asked me to join him for the ceremony itself, so he wouldn't have to ask himself questions.  Christina came up and Josiah took my hand and led me up to the front.  We followed a pare-down version of the ceremony that we used when Micah was dedicated.  Kel emailed it to me, so I had a chance to look it over before we left the house.  And I had a chance to add my own "grandfatherly" blessing at an appropriate spot.  Since I didn't have to do my accustomed last-minute preparations for church, I put together a little booklet with some Josiah pictures and the service in it.  Kind of surprised Kel, but Josiah got a kick out of looking at the pictures of himself.  "It's 'Siah," he kept saying.  Glad I made a few extra copies.  Christina's Dad wanted one, and she saved one for her Mom as well.  And of course Chris wanted to keep one.  We had a great lunch at their house and Kel and I dozed through the Astros game.  I even got to end up the day with some fishing.  That was my one bad choice for the day.  Oh, I caught some fish, and any time you can go fishing is the best time.  But it was extremely rough.  And I just used some dead shrimp I had in the freezer for bait.  And my elbows hurt so bad by the time I got home that they felt like they were burning.  But we'll enjoy eating those fillets when the time comes. 

 

2 Kings 23:25 says, "Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did — with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses."

 

Father, thank you for Josiah.  Give him all the strength and endurance he will need to excel as the youngest child in that family full of boys.  Amen.