Thanks to Dennis Arima at New Life Church, I have these beautiful pictures of Abby’s dedication to the Lord.
We celebrated this day on July 20, 2014. She is 5 years old, almost 6. I have dedicated every one of our babies to the Lord when they are a year old or younger. But we have moved 4 times in Abby’s short lifetime! We never got settled in anywhere long enough for me to feel at home or find someone that I felt comfortable asking to do this ceremony for us. We have been in Texas for two years now, and we’ve been attending New Life Church for almost a year, so I decided it was time to make this public commitment to raise Abby in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Pastor Dusty Kemp and his wife Mary graciously conducted the ceremony for us. Mom and Dad were here visiting. They just happened to choose this weekend to come. Coincidence, I think not! Our church does the baby dedications the third Sundays of the month. Kelsey’s birthday just happens to be on July 20th. So we combined all of these wonderful occasions in one big full day.
The main thing that Pastor Dusty stressed during the ceremony is that we are committing to raise Abby so that we are helping her to become the person that God made her to be. This resonates with what I have always prayed for my children. He was very good with Abby, and it was a very blessed time.
Here are the pictures that Dennis took during the ceremony and of the whole family afterwards.
"Oh that God would give every mother a vision of the glory and splendor of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse in to the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into its soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny,--she would see that in all God's world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers, and she would commit to no other's hands the sacred and holy trust given to her." -JR Miller
