River Baptism

Dusty went to a river baptism with us yesterday. 

Of everyone there, including the young woman getting baptised, I think Dusty was most ready to leap into that River Dee. But she had to wait.

She had to wait on the lead so that she would not steal the show, nor disrupt the proceedings by shaking a wet coat all over a dry person. 

She doesn’t know how to wait patiently, but eventually she did lie at my feet, for a time. 

As we all celebrated the new life symbolised by this young woman’s ‘dunking’ in the water, Dusty paddled along the rocky shore, ecstatically happy, cooling off. It was another brilliant summer’s afternoon in Royal Deeside. 

She paid for her exuberance later, limping slightly, sleeping lots. And in the night, she managed to open the sliding kitchen door, opening many possibilities for other sleeping berths. The one she chose was to pad up one stair, through the study, and down the other, to flop contentedly on the floor beside my side of the bed.

She loves the company. She loves to pile in with others, to feel their warmth, secure in their love.

Don’t we all? God has made us as social beings, who do best when we have some social interaction with people we love. We do even better when we add to that, some social interaction with Him.

Now that’s family.