Emma's dedication/Danny's first Father's Day!

Today was Danny's first father's day!  While we aren't big on doing presents, we did decide to celebrate with a BBQ with all of our friends and Nancy!  It was a lot of fun, and I think Danny enjoyed himself.  Here is a picture of papa with his bean at the cookout.

As for the babe, we had Emma dedicated this morning.  For those of you reading this who don't know what that means exactly, let me explain.  Let me say that we did not baptize Emma today.  Our church does not believe in infant baptism.  We believe baptism is to be done when the individual is old enough to make the decision and know what they are doing and why.

Therefore, dedication is a time when we promise to do our best to raise Emma in a house that is serving the Lord in every way.  That is a very hard promise to make, and one that we can only live up to by the grace of God!  We have already talked about ways we can do this.  Right now, Danny reads the bible to Emma every night, and we pray afterwards as a family.  Right now, she is usually either nursing or sleeping through it, but we figure that one day she will be old enough to stay awake and participate.  I would love if we can continue this tradition over dinner when she is a little older, and it can be a family discussion time!  Until then, we will just read it over her and pray together.

Also, throughout the day, I try my best to talk about the Bible with her.  I will tell her who different people in the Bible are, most importantly Jesus!  I also try to pray with her throughout the day.  We also sing praise songs while she nurses, the most consistent one being Amazing Grace.  She seems to enjoy getting sung to.

It will be harder to raise her to know Jesus when she is older and we have to deal with things such as discipline and teaching behaviors.  We were given the book "Shepherding a Child's Heart" as a baby gift, and look forward to reading that.  It is important to me that she learn not just to "behave" at times or for people, but that she learn why we choose to act in specific ways.  I want to teach her not to try and please her father and I, but to try and please Jesus first, and realize that if she does that, she will please us more than she could ever know!  I don't have answers about how to do that, but I can only have faith that with lots of prayer throughout her life, God will guide us in how to do that.

I know that first and foremost, it starts with a family that follows God, and has a real love for the Gospel, rather than one that just goes through the motions because that is what we're "supposed" to do.  Danny and I need to live out the gospel in the best ways we can, and allow Jesus to work through us and our faith, to reveal himself to Emma.  We have to go to church, read the Bible, pray, and participate in other Christian activities, not because that's what we've always done and because it's routine, but because we have hearts that long for Jesus and to grow closer to him all the time.  That is something much easier said than done sometimes.  It is easy to fall into the routine of things, and forget the heart aspect of doing them.

So here is my prayer for Emma... That Jesus will reveal Himself to her at a young age, so that she can live a long life devoted to and serving the Lord.  I pray that she can learn to be content in her life, with whatever God provides for her.  I pray that she will grow to have a humble and generous heart, who knows her strengths and gifts and uses them well to serve Jesus.  Danny and I are already praying for her future husband (if she chooses to get married), and we pray that through me and other women who have influence over her, she can learn how to be a loving and submissive wife, who serves her family humbly and lovingly!  We also pray that her husband will be raised in a family where he will learn how to love his wife as Christ loves the church, and will learn how to lead his family well, being a strong and secure man!  We both look forward to our lives with Emma, teaching her who Jesus is and watching her grow in knowledge and love of the Lord.  My greatest desire right now is to see the day that Emma accepts the Lord as her savior!!

I'll leave you with the scripture Danny read at her dedication.

2 Corinthians 5:20, 21: Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Here is Emma and I on stage as papa is reading scripture.  Notice how she is watching him. :-)  He was in the dark, so he couldn't be seen in the pic.

Here's the fam on our first Father's Day!