When I checked and saw that  Ese’s Weekly Shoot & Quote Challenge was “Spread” (for the week of November 11th) I started searching for quotes online. Of the few I found only this one sung to me: “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier” Mother Teresa
Almost instantly I knew the photos I wanted to attach to this quote but I could not find them right away. As I had a project by Friday morning I felt it was best to press on with that and left this week’s challenge on the back burner. In the process of this doing the project at hand though I found the photos I was seeking.

I want you to meet Baby Braden and I hope I can do justice to his Story of love Spread.

In the fall of 07’ I took a job with a dealership about an hour’s drive away from where I lived. It was a very difficult transition and more of a struggle than it should have been. Not because I did not know the job or my responsibilities, it was because I took them seriously. That did not sit well with my new fellow employees because me doing my job right meant they would lose money and power. I did not care then nor do I now. Why? Doing the right thing may not always pay but it does not make it any less the right thing to do. Still it comes with a cost that takes a toll on ones very being.
In the mist of this madness I came across a request for prayer for the pregnant daughter of a friend’s, friend on facebook. I was moved by the timeline posts and as the due date approached I had found myself totally invested in the well-being of this soon to be new life. Now I must interject here that the odds were unlikely that the Baby Braden would make it to the due date period. Being born as a viable birth was beyond the realm of those odds by a long shot. Yet with the constant strains of irresponsible and irrational person’s pressing upon my very being I still dared to hope
I regularly, as in hourly, checked Baby Braden’s progress before and after he was born on his Caring Bridge site. I was moved by the caring and loving people who visited and left comments. It carried me through a dark time where I needed a little love myself. I was praying and hoping right along with many who did not know me in the least. Right before his birth I prayed even more and I hoped a lot more but in the end I left it to His will. His will was hard but quite amazing I think.
Baby Braden was born against the odds and when I saw this picture I was speechless. I cannot speak for others but I dared to hope even more but it was not to be. Though I was disappointed I took solace in the fact that his parents did get to hold him and if I remember correctly change a diaper or two! But the greatest of all was that they got to count and hold the fingers of Baby Braden.

it is not rational to believe in something you cannot but I hope one day you will be in the same place I was, with the same grace pressed against me, and feel what I felt. Then maybe you can look into the place I saw Love spread and be as blessed as I feel am.

Dare to be but even more dare to believe and  Love will spread.