My Rose

Last night we went to a highschool graduation. Some friends from our life group came over after work, we all went to Taco Bell for dinner, then we headed out to Navajo Highschool. The oldest son of our life group leaders was graduating. As was our Pastor's fourth daughter (he has 5 daughters), and some other kids from the youth group.

This highschool has a tradition where, after the graduating class walks in and the welcome and prayer is said, they play some music and the seniors pass out roses to special people in their lives. They have to pay for the roses and decide in advance how many they need.

We were sitting with our life group leaders, their family, our life group friends, the youth pastor's wife, and kids from the youth group. (the youth pastor had to go to a different HS graduation) So the seniors started passing out their flowers and some of the kids came up to our group to give flowers to the youth pastor's wife and our life group leader's son came up and started handing roses to his mom, his grandma, his aunt, the youth pastor's wife, and other family and friends. Then he hands one in my direction. I thought he wanted me to pass it to someone because we have only known them for less then a year and I didn't even consider receiving a rose. So when he said "for you" I ridiculously blurted out "Are you serious?"

I was so blessed by this precious act of gratitude. And the joy that comes from receiving something so completely unexpected is priceless. I know this might sound silly, but for me the rose was a sign of acceptance. It's not that we hadn't felt accepted by our new church family, it was just a visible sign and from someplace so unexpected. And it was wonderful.

*and if I had a camera that worked this would totally have a picture of my rose attached to it. So picture in your mind a red long-stemmed rose in a white vase on my dining table.=)