a special day

Yesterday was a special day for us. Yesterday was Lily's dedication ceremony and celebration. As parents Jimmy and I want nothing more for Lily than for her to love Jesus with her whole heart and to be raised in a Christ centered home. He and I believe that as individuals we would fail miserably as parents but with God and the support of our family and friends we will not fail and God promises that He will fill in the gaps where we fall short. Yesterday Pastor Ed said something that really stuck, he said "our children are the most valuable thing the Lord gives us and today you are choosing to give them back to Him." That is exactly what yesterday meant to us.

In preparation for yesterday our church has you go through a little "Faith at Home" class. During the class they share statistics about how much time in days and hours you have with your child before they leave your home (that is if they leave when they are 18 :)) vs how much time they spend with friends, at school, in activities, at the church, etc. and it was truly unbelievable how little time you really have. The idea was that you need to spend that time wisely and teach them from an early age the things you want them to believe and know as truths. So they had us write down what those beliefs and truths were that we wanted them to take with them when they leave us. The things Jimmy and I wrote were:

• That Jesus loves you and is always there for you.
• That we love you and are always there for you.
• That you need to always be kind, humble, respectful and honest and to live with integrity.
• That we are proud of you.

On the other side of that card they asked us to write a short letter to Lily about why we chose to dedicate her and what it means to us. We wrote:
Lily May - we love you and are choosing to dedicate you today because we committ to raising you in a Christian home. We want you to always know that Jesus loves you. We committ that our family will be centered on our faith and hope you will see and understand the importance and can apply that to your life one day too. We love you!

The then they had us choose 1 of 4 verses as our blessing to our child. When choosing the Bible verse we were promising to pray this blessing over our child every day. The blessing we chose is:
"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:14,16

Then all of this went into a frame. The blessing is what is showing and the card with the beliefs and our letter is slid in the back. I thought this was such a neat idea and something that Lily will hopefully always keep with her to remember this special day.

Our promise to her is that she will grow up in a home surronded in our love but also the love of Christ, and our hope for her is that someday she will choose to love Christ on her own.

The card I wrote to Lily sums up my thoughts on the day for her and my committment as her parent. Obviously she can't read this today but someday she will read these words and understand the importance of this committment we made to her. I wrote:
Lily May - Today your dad and I dedicate you to the Lord. Today we declare that we will teach you about Jesus and that you will be raised in a home centered on our faith in Him. We love you so very much and can't imagine anyone loving you more but the Bible tells us that God does. May you grow to know Jesus and love Him just like we do - that is our daily prayer for your life precious girl. As your parens we promise to pray for you daily and love you unconditionally. I love you!

Being a parent changes your heart in so many ways. As I looked at the love surronding Lily yesterday I was so blown away. Some people don't have anyone they can count on for support in raising their child and we have so so many people in our lives that love us and love Lily. She is one blessed little girl and we are so very thankful for the blessing of her and the grace of God in choosing us to be her parents!

in her special outfit ready to go - this is the dress my sister's and i all wore when we were baptized, the braclet jimmy and i bought her for the day, and the blanket was made by her great grandma smedley

checking out mom's bag

us with pastor ed

blurry but the only pic we got of us all on stage

pastor ed & lily

playing with daddy

great grandma davis

great grandpa and grandma smedley

great grandpa and grandma dieken

Silly me forgot to take pictures of her with grandparents and her aunts and uncles that made it!