Day 35: Blessings of Great Worth

At our church, as a part of our faith and love for Jesus, we have a ceremony where we publicly dedicate our children to the Lord.  I don't really know where the practice of this comes from, but I would venture to guess it comes from the Old Testament where families dedicated their children in the temple.  I know that the meaning of it, for us, is simply a recognition that we are promising God to raise our children to know of His love for them, His sacrifice for them, and His overwhelming grace for them.  And we are making this promise to Him publicly so that those who journey with us will celebrate with us and hold us accountable to this promise.

This morning was our Dedication Ceremony.  Miraculously we made it to church with the girls still clean and pretty in their white princess dresses! (although Nikki did stop at one point to look for bugs in the pine bark mulch!  I almost had a stroke!  She also pulled the roses off of her headband TWICE, and I had to hot glue them TWICE!)

We joined 6 other families on stage and waited as one by one each parent prayed a blessing over their children. The girls were so good while they waited. 

Finally it was our turn.  The Pastor introduced our family and introduced the girls.  It was the first time we heard them called "Jones" publicly.  That made me tear up a little.

After Mike read his blessing over them, first Shannay and then Nikki took turns saying something into the microphone.  It made me nervous.  You never know what a toddler might say!

Finally, our church prayed a blessing of dedication over all the families!

I know the girls have no idea what is happening!  They are just happy that we are happy!

We greatly missed Jacob though.  We each said at different times that we wished Jacob was there.  He lives 3 hours away, and sometimes that really stinks.  Probably for him too!

Here is the blessing we wrote:

Nikki and Shannay,

In Isaiah 45:3 God says “I will give you riches hidden in the darkness and things of great worth that are hidden in secret places,” and you, our daughters, are the fulfillment of that promise.

May God continually watch over you and protect you, drawing you closer to Him daily, that you would know Him and love Him deeply throughout your lives. 

We pray you will always know that He chose you to be ours because you are of the utmost value to Him.  And He chose us to be yours because no one else will love you as fiercely as we do.

You are our riches of great worth.

All that to say, we are blessed.