{"id":234,"date":"2008-08-23T21:59:11","date_gmt":"2008-08-23T21:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2008\/08\/he-was-our-first-adoption.html"},"modified":"2008-08-23T21:59:11","modified_gmt":"2008-08-23T21:59:11","slug":"he-was-our-first-adoption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/08\/he-was-our-first-adoption.html","title":{"rendered":"He was our first adoption…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barbara and I had barely been married a year when we took a trip down to local Dumb Friends League in search of a dog.  It was heart wrenching seeing the various signs announcing the "expiration date" of each animal. We eventually settled on a Lab\/Akita mix, originally named Tanner, renamed by us:  Shelby.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Shelby was a wonderful dog.  Though I'm allergic to most animals, Shelby rarely set off an my symptoms.  He was great with the children and he could snore with the best of us.  I'm speaking in the past tense because last week Shelby died after 15 wonderful years of life.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

It happened so fast.  He began howling with pain around 11pm.  By the time I got him to the vet he couldn't walk so we wheeled him in on a gurney.  And before I knew it I was back in my bed staring at the ceiling trying to figure out how to tell my six children that they only dog they have ever known was dead.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Describing death to six children ages three to ten is no easy task…especially when I'm not sure I've come to grips with what happened to our first adoption…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barbara and I had barely been married a year when we took a trip down to local Dumb Friends League in search of a dog.  It was heart wrenching seeing the various signs announcing the "expiration date" of each animal. We eventually settled on a Lab\/Akita mix, originally named Tanner, renamed by us:  Shelby. Shelby…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"\nHe was our first adoption... - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/08\/he-was-our-first-adoption.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"He was our first adoption... - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Barbara and I had barely been married a year when we took a trip down to local Dumb Friends League in search of a dog.  It was heart wrenching seeing the various signs announcing the "expiration date" of each animal. 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys & 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}