*Begun on January 31st, 2016, your dedication day, and finished as I found time around my busy full time job of being your mommy.
Today we dedicated you to our Lord.
My sweet, spunky, spirited bundle of energy and sunshine. My not-so-baby girl who claps hands and blows kisses and gives slimy, slobbery, sticky sugars. My strong-willed little one with the temper like your mommy and the determination of your daddy - already exploring your surroundings and testing the limits (and Mommy's patience!) Today we stood before God and before our family and fellow believers who love you and reiterated a promise long since made to God and to you - the promise to devote ourselves as your parents to love you the way He loves you and to point you to His grace and goodness by the way we live our lives.
So many thoughts were going through my mind, little girl, as I held you in my arms and your Grandaddy prayed committing you to God. Tears stood in my eyes (only one or two escaped down my cheeks) and nobody saw the burdens, dreams, desires, and prayers that my heart holds for you.
No one hears the prayers I pray for you every night when I hold your warm, snugly body to my heart and feel your soft breathing. When the weight of responsibility comes crashing down on me and I realize that I am holding in my arms a little life, a precious, moldable soul. I pray then that our Father will reinforce my spirit and draw me constantly to Himself so that I might have wisdom and strength to be the Mommy you need me to be. I ask Him to make me sensitive to your needs - that I would not respond rashly or impatiently to your many little inquiries, needs, and demands on my time and attention. I pray that He will fill me with His love and grace - that in observing my life you will see, not perfection, not expectations, but room to fail, to fall down, and to still be infinitely loved and accepted. I pray you will never live under the burden of what I want or expect you to be, but that you always know support and encouragement from Mommy and Daddy to be the very special person God created you to be. I pray that you will thrive and live life to the fullest - that you will have dreams and chase them, set goals and pursue them. That you will discover the unique talents and gifts He has put within you and that you will feel freedom to create, discover, explore, and learn. I pray that you will know how beautiful you are - what real beauty is, and that you are beautiful simply because you are you, created perfectly and wonderfully and just exactly the way He wanted you to be. I pray that He will hold your heart (and mine) as you learn that life is hard; full of sin and sickness, hurt and broken dreams. I pray that I would refrain from trying to protect you from the world and instead make my arms an ever-open refuge where you can run when life knocks you down. Oh, how I pray that in those times my response, my embrace, my prayers will point you to Him. I pray that you will never question how very much you are loved by your daddy and me and by God.
Most of all, my precious love, I pray you will know Him. Oh God, how I pray that you will! That your life will be lit by the eternal fire of His Spirit, and by the joy that it is to love and be loved by the One who created you! I pray that you will know a vibrant, genuine, life-giving relationship with Him that will determine everything about how and where, and with whom you spend your life. I pray that you rejoice in grace and love mercy and live to share these gifts with others. I pray that the gospel is the fire in your bones that drives you, and sustains you - that it won't go out and won't let you stop until the world knows the Savior.
All this and more I pray for you, my baby, each time I hold you in my arms. And I pray that I won't forget these moments. That every memory will be carved into the walls of my heart. That when you are all grown up and hold your own little one in your arms, I can look at you out of eyes shining with glad tears and know that when those days were mine to cherish I loved you with my whole soul, the very best that I knew how.
And although I pray and "dedicate" you to Him, I (try to) hold you with very loose hands...because from the first moment of your existence, you were already His.
I thank Him that He saw fit to share such a beautiful gift with me.
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