The Franklin Family: Andrew's Baby Dedication

A couple of weeks ago, (11-6-11) we had Andrew's baby dedication at church. It's one of my favorite things that our church does. It is an intimate gathering for our family and friends who commit to helping us raise our children as God would have us. My parents and Brian's parents were able to come along with Brian's sister, Mary Katherine. It was a great day to share with family. Brian and I both wrote letters to Andrew and we also took a covenant saying that we would do our best to raise Andrew to be a light for Christ.

At the dedication, there is a slide show of all the babies and families who are being dedicated. There are cupcakes, which is the girls favorite part, and they give Andrew a photo and frame and a storybook bible for him. It's so much fun and so uplifting to share with our family and friends who are such influences in our kids lives what our goal as parents is for our children. We all mess up as parents, but I feel so blessed to have realized the immense importance of giving our kids a solid foundation in Christ before they were too old to want to listen to me. The verse of Mark 8:36 comes to mind when thinking about raising my kids. "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" I think about all the things that we have going on in life, school, ballet, work, etc....but yet that all means nothing if our kids and we don't know Christ's love. I use to put so much emphasis on my kids getting the best education available, but then I came to realize, what does it matter if they don't know God's love? Don't get me wrong, I still want my kids to have a good education, but I want so much more for them in this life. I want them to know how to love as Christ loves, and I want them to serve as Christ serves others, and I want them to have a heart like Christ. I know that I as a parent will fall so short, but grace and mercy covers us and all our faults. I heard the best explaination of grace and mercy the other day. Grace is getting what we don't deserve, while mercy is not getting what we do deserve. I don't deserve all of the blessings in my life, but thanks be to God, He has entrusted them to me for a short time.