Dedication promises #4 and #5

Promise #4
Do you promise to provide, through God's blessing, for the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs of your children, looking to your own Heavenly Father for the wisdom, love and strength to serve them and not use them?

And as you are typing this, if the angry neighbor drives down to tell you that your children (way too old to be doing things like this) are ringing doorbells and running away all through the neighborhood, you will remember the promises that you have made on behalf of them..even when you want to sit on them...or ground them for life. That is where the test begins..in those moments when your children let you down...and when you think they can handle a little freedom and they prove that they can not.

It is our privilege to serve the children that God has entrusted in our care. Don't get me wrong, it is much easier to serve the children who don't have FAS and RAD...who disobey at every turn and who humble us at by their behavior that looks like it is a result of bad parenting. We did not have children or adopt them to make us look good or to serve us in any way, thankfully. Parenting is not about us..it is about what we can give to our children not what they do for us. For me, it is a joy to serve the children in our home who are obviously disabled. Feeding, bathing and teaching our sick and disabled children is physically tiring but it is an honor to serve them in that way. It is much more challenging to serve our children who have FAS--they tire us emotionally and we can lose sight of the hope that we cling to...the hope that one day they will be able to begin making choices that do not have serious implications for them in the future...like jail time. And we will cling to the hope that God will draw them near and speak into their hearts the truth in a way that they can comprehend. 

And cling we will, because one of the same children who got into trouble earlier just shattered the large patio door double pane window...something I don't think will be easily replaced.... and it is suppose to snow soon. I have no words to say to him right now that would sound anything like the promises I am about to make on Sunday..and so I will retreat for a few minutes and calm myself down as I pray for wisdom in dealing with this situation without the threat of bodily harm. His recent behavior scares me because this is the child that we actually thought had a neurotypical brain...the Lord has made it abundantly clear these past few months that we are parenting not 9 but 10 of  our children with special needs. At times like these when if I don't laugh, I will cry, I don't mind relinquishing all worldly claim upon their lives--I can tell myself that they are God's kids--not mine..


Promise #5
Do you promise, God helping you, to make it your regular prayer that by God's grace your children will come to trust in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of their sins and for the fulfillment of all his promises to them, even eternal life, and in this faith follow Jesus as Lord and obey this teachings?

With all of my shortcomings and failures, there is one thing that each of my children can be assured of. For as long as we are able, we will pray for them every day.

We will continue to pray as we have since before they were born, that they would come to love the Lord with every part of their being. We will pray that they will cling to the promises that we have all been given in Christ and that they will find salvation in Him alone.  We will pray that God would help them to develop their spiritual gifts and that they would delight in using those gifts to serve him all the days of their lives.

So, Lord willing, on Sunday, we will joyfully stand before our Church family and dedicate our precious children to the Lord. They are a treasure to us and we are thankful to be called to care for them.

Dedication Promises #3

Promise #3 Do you pledge as parents that, with God's Fatherly help, you will bring up your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, making every reasonable effort, with patience and love to build the Word of God, the character of Christ and the joy of the Lord into their lives?

Talk about a humbling promise....I didn't grow up in a Christian home. When we began as parents, we longed to observe other families to see what that promise looked like on a day to day basis. There were families who learned scripture together, families that served the Lord together, and those that lead by example--without a lot of verbal instruction about the act of living for Christ. Everything they did just pointed to the cross. We saw many different ways to get to the same place...some homeschooled while others sent their kids to Christian or public school. In the beginning, I searched for the right way to live out this promise and I would often get defensive as I watched others who believed that they had found the magic formula for parenting.  It just didn't seem that "one size fits all" to me.
And over the years, I learned that there are many ways to do things right. Without compromising the fundamental truths of our faith, the day to day of living for the Lord allows for freedom to make choices that may not look like every other Christian.. While there is no wavering in our commitment to Bible reading and worship, and the significance of the role of discipline in our parenting, there is one thing that must remain at the core of our commitment to raising our children for the Lord. And that is our commitment to  living for Him with all of our being. I want our parenting to be purposeful--not just something that happens as we rush off to get things done. But it is in each of the moments that combine to make up a lifetime that our faith is imparted in our children. Our responses to difficult times, to the needs of others, to the correction of the Lord in our lives, will shape the way they see the world and our Lord.

And we have failed so much over the years. And with humility, we again make this promise to our Lord and to our children. We will live for Jesus...and we will make mistakes. But, we will always strive to walk in obedience and live whole heartedly for God. And it is with joy we will serve the Lord with our children by our side.

Dedication

On Mother's day, the four youngest kids are going to be dedicated at Church. We have created a little backup in our family (and this is not the first time!) Ideally, each child would have been dedicated shortly after they joined our family. Because of foster care restrictions, hospitalizations, impending new arrivals, lack of childcare to attend the orientation training and the loss of our son, Evan, we have never been able to complete the process. And Lord willing, we will finally be able to stand before the Church and our Lord, and commit ourselves along with our Church family to the 5 promises of the dedication process. These promises mean so much to our family and here are some thoughts about each one of them:

Promise #1
Do you recognize these children as the gifts of God and give heartfelt thanks for God's blessing?
The farther along this journey of parenting we have been on, the deeper and more meaningful this promise means to us. Isaac has given me a glimpse of our utter dependency on God. He, like all infants, are completely dependent on us for their survival. Infants can do nothing to tend to their own needs apart from the care of another. For Isaac, the dependency is very evident. He is dependent on us for every movement of  his body, even for the breath that he takes. He is utterly dependent on us. The older we get, we start to think we are pretty self sufficient in this life, but we are just as utterly dependent on our Father--for our every breath.

Each time we add another child to our family, I watch my husband sneaking time late into the evening to get some special one on one time with that child. The sheer number of children has never lessened his amazement at how wonderful God is to allow us to be a part of this miracle of life. He marvels and thanks God at the incredible blessing that this child has brought to our family. He prays over this little one and can barely hold in his excitement at how God perfectly knits families together. But that is the easy part of this promise.

And then there are those days, when that beautiful precious child says things that are very hurtful... Or embarrasses us  and causes harm to themselves and others with their behavior... Or starts to make choices that are not what you would have chosen for that child. Then I ask the question again, Do we recognize that this child, the same child that we gave heartfelt thanks for as a small child, is a blessing from God? That is a promise that has brought us through difficult times. We repeat this in our minds until we can actually claim it again with our whole hearts.  And it is in those times, that we truly begin to grasp this promise and can begin to imagine how deep our Father's love is for us.

Promise #2
Do you now dedicate your children to the Lord who gave them to you all, surrendering all worldly claims upon their lives in the hope that they will belong wholly to Jesus Christ?


With each child, we have asked God to remind us always that our children are not "ours." They are on loan from God. He is still in control and sovereign over them and it is not for us to hold on when God is calling our children forth. We have been given such a precious opportunity to hold our son as he entered eternity. If we had not surrendered all worldly claims upon his life, we could not have fully experienced what it meant to be a part of something so miraculous. None of us would choose this for our lives--to go through the heartache of losing a child, but we know with certainty that God was in control of every aspect of Evan's life--and death.

And now, as Tyler, our 19 year old, is studying in Kenya, we are being reminded again of the surrendering of all worldly claims to our children. He wants to complete his degree at Daystar University and stay for another one to two years. My heart aches to know that we may not see him for a long time, and yet I repeat this promise in my mind over and over. I would never want to stand in the way of where God is leading Tyler. We are excited to see how the Lord has been using these past 6 months in  powerful ways. This week, he is finishing up his semester and soon will start working at a Ugandan orphanage for the summer. He has grown up over the last 6 months. We are so thankful that Tyler has listened to God's call in his life.  We are praying that God continues to work in remarkable ways as he has done so already.And so we let go again...

We will not stand in the way of what God is doing with His children. We will recognize that God will call His children in the ways that he has planned and that our role is to hold loosely to our children so that they look to God, not us, as they mature and grow into adults. If you are parenting young children, I would encourage you to keep this promise in the forefront as you are parenting. It will set a foundation for everything that you do with your children. And when you are tempted to pull back and try and hold tight to your children when God is calling them in a different way, you will be thankful that you have claimed this promise.  And then you will again surrender that child back to God and pray..and pray...