C's Dedication

On April 3, Paul and I had Caleb dedicated to God at our church. My mom came out for the occasion, which was a very meaningful and special service. There were about 12 children under 24 months that were dedicated that evening. It was only for us and our friends and family and included a brief talk from our pastor, every family up at the podium reading a letter to their child, special music that our worship pastor wrote, and dessert. I know Caleb won't remember this, but Paul and I certainly will, and we even have a DVD of the event to show him later.

There were several things we had to do to prepare for this event. We had to sign some papers, do a few homework assignments, and attend a class before church one morning. The first homework assignment was to write a letter to Caleb sharing our heart, hopes and dreams for him. The second consisted of coming up with concrete ways Paul and I are going to make our marriage a priority so that Caleb grows up knowing he has a stable family support system and parents who value and love one another. The third assignment was to come up with 5 values we want Caleb to have and ways were were going to instill these values. It really made us think about how we were going to parent intentionally.

At first I thought we were both supposed to write our son a letter, so my first draft was 4 pages long (and tear-stained)! Paul has been keeping a journal of letters to Caleb since before he was born. We realized after our meeting that we were only supposed to write one letter, from both of us, and that we were going to read it in front of everyone! So Paul took some good parts from my letter, added a bit of his own and condensed it to about a page. I made Paul read it for fear of crying at the podium. When I even think about how much we love our dear son, I just get all sappy!

We hope and pray that Caleb will enter into a loving and redeeming relationship with Jesus Christ someday, claiming Him as his Lord and Savior. We want him to respect and honor others, love his neighbor as himself, be generous, kind, hardworking, patient, trustworthy, forgiving, humble, faithful, honest and sincere. We hope he will be passionate and persistent when fighting for what is right and, like the Caleb of the Old Testament, have a different spirit from the world and follow God wholeheartedly (Num. 14:24). Paul and I understand that our role as his parents is crucial to his development and growth, and we promise to live our lives as a demonstration of our expectations for him. We are excited to watch him grow into a wonderful man someday, and we are filled with expectation as we eagerly await the great plans the Lord has for him! These things and more we expressed to him in our letter. Caleb was great during the service and then enjoyed playing with the podium and running around being silly afterward.