Dedication

On Mother's Day we dedicated the twins at church. In traditional churches, there is a baptism for babies but our church believes that it's every person's right to choice their baptism when they are old enough. Instead, this ceremony is more about the parents. We dedicated to raise these boys in such a way that they would have an understanding of God and would with all hope choose Him when they were older.

We did this same promise with Tristan. When we dedicated the raising of Tristan, it felt like something we really wanted for him. With a few years of parenting under our belt, this promise felt different. It felt more intentional, more serious, and more doable than the first time.

Neil and I have observed multiple ways of teaching kids about God through our upbringings, youth ministry, and most of our friends. My personal observation is that more people turn away from God after attending church as kid/teen because of many reasons, one being a disconnect between what they hear at church and what they see at home. So as Neil prayed our prayer for Finn and Ian that God would always call loudly to them and that we would teach them how to listen, I also promised to try my best to live a life worthy for them to watch.

Finn and Ian won't remember this day, although I will show them adorable pictures of them in their outfits. They didn't understand the words we prayed for them that day. My hope is that one day they feel we have lived up to our true job as parents and we meet back at the church for a baptism... matching outfits for that one? Hey, a mother can dream.