This weekend we had Levi’s baby dedication at church.

As parents, Ryan and I believe that children are a gift from God, and that becoming parents means that we are entrusted with the awesome responsibility and privilege of raising them to the best of our ability.

To us, having a baby dedication ceremony is merely a public confession of something that we do every day:

There is not a night that goes by that I don’t thank God for the beautiful gift of Levi’s life, and not a day that goes by that we don’t dedicate ourselves to the incredible task of raising him to be a young man who loves God and loves people according to our faith.

As Levi comes of age himself he will choose if he wants to follow God or not. That is his decision, not our own.

Our commitment to him in the meantime is that we do our best to demonstrate God’s heart of love, compassion, kindness, grace, acceptance, humility, wisdom, justice, and mercy so that his view of God will be as accurate as possible as it comes time for his faith to become his own.

So as we stood up in front of the congregation along with my in-laws at Levi’s baby dedication, we publicly declared our intention to walk out our commitment to him in teaching him and training him in life and faith. We thanked God—once again—for the amazing gift of Levi’s life, and we dedicated our little family to the One we believe is the Giver of Life and All Things Good.

Isn’t it an amazing privilege and responsibility to have children?  We are so, so, so very blessed.