Our Down Right Beautiful Life: Dedicated

Psalm 127:3-5

"Children are a gift from the Lord;

they are a reward from him.

Children born to a young man

are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.

How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them!

He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates."

This morning we joined with our family and friends and collectively thanked the Lord for giving us our newest little blessing. We promised to raise Claire up according to His Word and to model in our own lives what it means to be a Christ follower. It was a great morning!

This is our third time dedicating a child to the Lord, in church, alongside family and friends but I can't help but reflect on our journey as parents and how our hearts have changed in terms of what it truly means for us to dedicate our children and I wanted to share those feelings with you as I explain what it means for us to dedicate Claire today.

When we got home from church, Justin headed up to bed, I turned a movie on for the kids, and went searching for an old blog post. I kept a blog for one year after Emelyn died (for those new to our story, Emelyn is Claire's big sister). It wasn't anything fancy and I didn't even share it with anyone, it was just a way for me to journal about my grief and the things that I learned over that year. There was one post in particular about Abraham and Isaac that I wanted to find. Since the day Emelyn went to be with the Father, I have related to the story of Abraham and Isaac in a new way. Although God didn't ask me to sacrifice my child with my own hands (thankfully!), and although the story has a different ending... the journey of learning to have faith despite anything that the Lord asks of you is similar. We found out that Emelyn was, very literally, fighting for her every "breath" in March of 2010 and we began an aggressive [and painful] fight for her life, and 4 months later in July, we celebrated both the joy of her birth and experienced the pain of her death.

I can see now that everything that we went through during that painful time has helped to shape our lives and our family in ways that I couldn't imagine. Throughout our journey there was a lot of pain, but there was also joy. And a new, and deep, perspective of thankfulness for every moment that we have of this life and with those we love. Our lives have, very literally, been changed forever.

Part of my post from September 2010 reads:

"I have come to not only know, but to really understand that my children are not mine -- they may feel like mine, and I may hold on to them like they are - but really, they are God's and His plan for them is better than even my plan for them is. It may not feel like it now, and I may struggle with accepting His plan, I may even petition and beg and pleed for him to change His plan but I know that my perspective is limited and I just have to rely on my Father who knows best -- and this takes extreme faith!"

It is one thing to say that we have Abraham-sized faith but it is a completely different thing to follow through when it is one of our own children and, like you can imagine, we struggled.

We dedicated Emelyn to the Father in a very real and tangible way, not in a church service but in a hospital room surrounded, not by family, but by nurses and doctors, many of which we barely knew. And now we get to choose, not just once during a church service, but every. single. day. to dedicate our children, in every way, to the Father and to His plan, whatever that may be for them.

So today, when we held Claire up in the air as a symbol that she belongs to the Father alone, I laid at His feet all of the fears that I have for her life. Fear about her health, but even greater than that is my fear about her acceptance, fear of how she will be treated, and my hope that those that she meets would fully grasp her incredible value and all that she has to offer this world. I lay them at the feet of my Savior, HER Savior, the one who knows her inside and out, who formed her in my inmost being and I declare that, to the best of my ability, I will teach her to do the same - to stand on the promises of His Word and to rest in the arms of our loving Savior.

We are commanded not to live in fear, this doesn't mean that we don't have very real reasons to fear, it means that we have learned to renew our minds so that we can walk in His joy and freedom, regardless of what life may bring.

He's got this friends <3! And He's got you [and yours] too ... no matter what He asks of us, He will carry us through and, even when it looks like no possible good can come from a situation, when things are as dark and hopeless as they could possibly be, He is faithful and mighty, He is joy and love and peace. He will sustain and comfort us. So let's let go, take a deep breath, this isn't our battle to fight. Stand on His promises, be obedient to His word and ... breathe deep.

John 14:27

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."