Yesterday we weclomed as many guests as regulars to morning worship at the Gathering Place. 

This had involved team of around eight folk coming down the day before to carry chairs up from the cellar, wash them and arrange them, along with every 'normal' chair we could muster to accomodate everyone. 

It had also involved the family who were giving thanks for their child researching and identifying an appropriate liturgy to combine with our usual 'infant/child blessing' liturgy to reflect the unqiue circumstances that had brought us to this point.

And, let's be honest, it had involved me getting more than a bit stressed and grumpy in the final run-up.

As is the way of these things, and so often depsite us, God's Spirit was at work and we enjoyed a happy, beautiful occasion with a 'child in the midst'.

The three candles were lit by the parents as part of the Iona/Wild Goose liturgy they had chosen to give thanks for the adoption of their daughter.  One candle for the birth parents, one for the foster carers, one for the child and her forever family.

The cake was made and decorated by one of our ladies, who marvelled that her choice of butterflies as decoration echoed the metaphor of butterflies I'd used in my sermon.

Our prayers of intercession skilfully led by another church member, allowed us to recall the child refugees fleeing Syria and allowed us to pray for those who try or struggle to parent children.

Yesterday I could not help but remember an infant blessing from exactly five years ago, a boy, the second born of his parents (and who was there yesterday with his older brother and younger sister) about which I blogged at the time here. 

A lot of memories were stirred for me yesterday, more perhaps than was comfortable, not only in that service but in the songs someone else had chosen for the evening service.  Today feels more settled, the intensity has waned and that's probably a good thing.

Yesterday was a profound privilege, giving thanks for the daughter of one church family, visiting the (grown up) daughter of another in hospital recovering from a very serious illness... life in its fulness for sure.