Baby Dedications!

This coming Sunday we will dedicate Riley to our Lord at Missoula Alliance Church!  I have been consumed with the nonsense of what she's going to wear, what the rest of us is going to wear, if we should have a post-dedication celebration with family and friends, and who's going to take pictures of this momentous occasion.  Getting wrapped up in all of this small stuff has forced me to take a step back and focus on what this day means for our family, and more importantly, for Riley.

It was almost exactly one year ago that we dedicated Cale to the Lord.  He wore a cute black suit with a light blue, button-down shirt and an adorable clip-on tie. He was stunningly handsome!  It was such a big occasion for us that my family from Billings came to witness the event.  Perhaps it was the way Cale entered this world or maybe even the uncertainty of his future that made it so much bigger to us, but for some reason dedicating Riley doesn't seem as momentous.  I look at it somewhat like this: for whatever reason, good or bad, people seem to trust situations to God when they are too big for us to handle on our own.  It's when we feel like we can be in control of things that we stop trusting Him.  If I apply this to Cale and Riley, I begin to see that I feel more in control of Riley than I do of Cale.  I have no idea what the future holds for Cale - will he be able to walk or talk, will he ever have a job, will he ever have a girlfriend or even close friends, will he be accepted by people, will he ever have children of his own, etc.?  With Riley, I "know" she'll be able to walk and talk, she'll probably have tons of friends and unfortunately many boyfriends, she'll have several jobs before she finds the one that ends up being her career, and if she's anything like Alex and me, she'll be a social butterfly who one day has kids of her own.  I have to trust God's plan for Cale because things are too uncertain to make a plan of my own.  With Riley, it's easy for me to get lost in my dreams of her playing golf, going to prom, and planning her wedding that I forget that she's just as fragile as Cale is, and that God could take her from us in one breath.  Her life belongs to God just as much as Cale's does, but it's much easier for me to feel in control of her than it is for me with Cale.  It's hard for me to admit that but it's the honest truth.

This Sunday I am going to pray that Riley will know the Lord at an early age and that she trusts Him with her life.  I will pray that Alex and I can be good role models for her and that she can see God's love shine through us.  I will also pray that I can begin to understand that although she's my child, she's also on loan and that one day she will be with her true Father.  My job is to take the best care of her that I know how and give her the absolute most love she could ever experience on this earth.  

This whole realization is oddly comforting.