Blessing Our Animals: Part One

On Saturday, September 29, 2018, Sardis will hold its third annual Blessing of the Animals. This is an opportunity to offer thanks for the very special animal friends in our lives — the ones that model how we should love one another. We’ll pause to pray for, celebrate, and bless these special creatures. You can learn more about the event here.

During last year’s event, we had the special privilege to meet Jessica Wallace from Bullies 2 The Rescue, a Charlotte-based animal shelter that rescues English and French Bull Dogs. The Bullies crew has rescued more than 200 animals this year, and we’ve enjoyed getting to meet them. You can learn more about their mission here. And on the day of the event, we’ll collect donations and supplies to support their good work.

As a way to expand our animal blessing, Sardis has created a wall of blessings. We encourage community members to share pictures of their favorite pets. We display these pictures in our sanctuary (and add to them!) all year long, so we can ask God’s special blessing on the creatures that love us, and keep us safe. It’s also a way for us bless pets who can’t be here in person, or to honor/memorialize those pets who are no longer with us. If you’d like to include a picture of your pet, please email a picture, name, and any special prayer requests to our church office.

Jessica and her team have been kind enough to share pictures and stories of the special animals in the Bullies family. Here’s round one. Look for more later this week.

Brody:
Please pray for a peaceful transition for Brody, he means a lot to his owner- Mary Keyser Armstrong

Neva:
This is our sweet Neva, she just recently turned 14, we’ve had her since she was 4 weeks old. She came from a puppy mill I shut down. She’s a huge part of our lives and just the sweetest dog. So motherly, Beck’s best bud and just an angel. We know our days are getting limited but we wish we could keep her forever. We pray we have many more wonderful days and years with her but are thankful for Beck getting to grow up with her ❤

Clooney:

We received this request for Clooney, just before he passed away earlier this month. But we still wanted to honor him on the blessing board.

This is Clooney, Clooney is a Therapy dog at the Ronald McDonald house in Charlotte, he’s a huge part of our rescue and belongs to one of our long-time volunteers, Cynthia Alayne. He was just diagnosed with an inoperable cancerous tumor on his spine yesterday. Everyone in Bullie Nation is devastated, especially his owner. It was sudden and shocking. He’s done so much good for so many. He’s such a sweet boy. Cynthia is in the process of preparing him a bucket list so he can live out his final days as happy as possible.

Stanley:
This is Stanley, he is 5 years old and has cancer. It has spread and his family doesn’t know how much longer they’ll have with him. The family is from another state and wanted me to add him to the prayer board.

Mattingly:
This is Mattingly, he was recently diagnosed with cancer of the blood vessels last week. He had emergency surgery to remove a mass on his spleen and they found it. His family is devastated. He’s doing well for now but he’s slowly showing signs of decline 😢

Harper:
This is baby Harper, she is one of our special needs puppies. She has limited mobility due to spinal issues we’re working on with water therapy.