Sharing A Story

   Today I am not even sure where to begin. I've been following some awful drama that has been unfolding over the last 24 hours and it really just makes me sad and angry. It involves some wonderful mom friends of mine, Gina and Lacey, and the maternity pictures that Gina shot for Lacey earlier this week.  So for my act today I'm going to share this story and photo because I think it is beautiful and it needs to be shared and I hope that if you read this, you will share it with others as well.
  Some of you may remember my friend Lacey and her son Christian from a post last month when I raced for Special Kids of Murfreesboro , which is where Christian and other special needs children receive services. Well, their family is about to be blessed with baby number two very soon and so they decided to have Gina, who is an excellent photographer and specializes in photographing special needs kids, do some maternity shots and a few with Christian as well. They turned out great... Lacey looked radiant and the ones with Christian playing with his momma's belly were so sweet. Gina posted a few of them on Facebook as she was editing them to give the family a sneak peak of how great they came out and they were instantly liked by many who are friends with both ladies. But someone out there did have a problem with one of the pictures and claimed they found it so offensive that it needed to be taken down. So they went to Facebook and demanded that it be removed and it was. Facebook took down the post and all other shared posts of the photo and then temporarily locked Gina out of her business page. After some time she was able to get back on but was told that she was to remove any other offensive photos or risk having her page taken down all together. But it was never explained what someone found offensive about the photo or what about it made it unfit for posting. Now someone please tell me what is so offensive about this beautiful photo of a mother and her son being playful together and excited about a new baby that is going to arrive soon.....

Here's the beauty of Facebook, if someone posts something you don't like or want to look at you can un-friend them or hide their posts from your news feed. And in the end I think whoever caused this whole stir knows that but was just trying to be hurtful. This isn't the first time that someone has called pictures of Christian offensive or made very rude and hateful remarks about him or Lacey.  Thankfully Lacey is wonderfully blessed with being able to handle these types of situations with class and demeanor. I don't know that I would have such patience. So I hope you'll share this post and photo because it really is great and sweet and I don't want anyone to think that it is ever okay for anyone to be singled out or treated unfairly. Sure Christian is different, but we're all different for a million reasons. He is just as deserving as any other child of having his photos shown off on Facebook that his mom is proud of and wants to share friends and family like so many of us with children do.
I also wanted to take a moment to share Gina's website and business if you are interested. She is great with such a wonderful heart and that comes through in the photos that she shoots. You can check her out HERE.