Have you ever wanted something so much that you think about it and anticipate it happening and then when it finally does it doesn't turn out the way you had thought? Well, I have to say that is how my day started out. As long as I can remember I have wanted to have a little girl and dress her up in her white dress for her blessing day. I also wanted all my friends and family to be there to help celebrate with me. So after having all my boys and finally figuring out that a little girl was not in the near future I let that dream die.Then when we got Nevaeh, I started to dream the dream again. But I knew that it would have to be different since we were not going to be able to bless her as an infant. I knew that she could possibly be 2 or even 3 when it occurred since she would have to be legally adopted to be blessed. And then there were times that I wasn't sure it would be able to happen at all since it looked like she was going back. But as soon as I found out the adoption was going to happen I started dreaming again. What the dress would look like, who would there, how we would celebrate afterwards and so on.
We decided to bless her on her birthday since it was on a Sunday and since she shared her birthday with her brother, Jared, and he would be ordained a Teacher on that day too. This way any family who had to travel would be able to attend both events. Unfortunately, I guess their birthdays didn't fall on a good day for most of our family and so our guest list was pretty small. Now you need to understand that I have a very large family and have probably been to just about every event that any of my family members have had. So instead of the 30 or so people I was expecting to be there, there ended up only being my mom (my dad ended up having to go to urgent care that morning), my sister Tami and her two girls, my sister Mary and her husband Jeff and their 5 children.
The next problem I had was trying to find a blessing dress for a 3-year-old. It was not an easy task and I finally found one on-line that I liked and was willing to pay for. I just couldn't see spending over $50.00 for a dress she would only wear once. But when the dress arrived and I tried it on her it was a little short. I wanted a tea-length dress not a knee-length dress. I still thought she looked really sweet in it so I figured I would be okay with her wearing it. The morning of the blessing though Nevaeh had her own ideas. She refused to put it on. She kept telling me "It no fit" "It too big" "I no like". Steve had already left for church and I was left trying to convince the 3-year-old she wanted to look like a pretty princess for church. I finally won that battle but the battle with her hair was just beginning. I finally decided it was not worth the fight and hoped that she would leave the headband in her hair once we got to church.
For those of you not of our faith, it is custom for the men to gather in circle and hold the baby while the father gives the blessing. Now, Nevaeh is not a huge 3-year-old but she is still too big to have everyone try to hold her. Plus, she normally talks all through our prayers so I wasn't sure how reverent she was going to be. I had told the Bishop that maybe we should just bless her in his office with just family attending. He asked me to please reconsider since the people of our ward (church congregation) had been on this hard journey with us and he felt like it would be wonderful for them to witness. I agreed and said that if I gave her a sucker she would hopefully just suck on it and not talk and try to grab at the microphone.
The morning of the blessing my plan was to go up in front with her and have her sit on my lap while Steve gave her the blessing. But when they called us to come up front I learned that I was not suppose to be in the circle and that Steve could just hold her. This turned out to work out perfectly except for the fact that I was now up front so everyone could see as tears poured down my face during the blessing.
Nevaeh could not have been more of an Angel and I don't think anyone will ever forget her sweet blessing. Along with a blessing the father says what the child's name will be on the records of the church. As Steve started to say her name he got chocked up and started to cry. The next thing you hear is Nevaeh saying "It's okay daddy. It's okay" As the blessing continued, Steve would start to chock up again and Nevaeh patted him on the back, kissed him on the cheek and said "It's okay daddy. It's okay". I did not witness this because I was sitting behind them but I had several people recount what happened to me and I could hear her sweet small voice consoling her daddy. As I sat up on the stand crying, trying hard to keep my eyes closed for the prayer, I looked out into the congregation to see almost everyone else crying too. I realized at that point that although my immediate family was not all there with me, my ward family was. And these were the people who every Sunday checked on me to make sure I was okay. Who had watched us go through so much pain and anguish and then to see such a wonderful miracle happen. I felt so blessed at that moment. Knowing how many people really cared about her outcome and my family's well being. Knowing that God had blessed me with so much that the length of the dress, the hair all a mess and the missing family members were not an important part of the day. But the fact that we had so many people around us who loved us and that God was aware of us was all that really mattered.
My sweet Jared was ordained a Teacher that day too. Of course, with all the excitement of the blessing, the bishop forgot to sustain him and I had to send Steve up during church to ask about it. But everything worked out in the end on that too. I guess I spend way to much time stressing out about unimportant things. I am truly grateful for all that God has blessed me with and will try harder to remember that the next time things aren't working out the way I think they should.
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