A VERY Happy Father’s Day

Yes, I know we're almost two weeks past Father's Day, but it was a great one for our family, and I've been waiting on pictures to post about it.

Forgive me, but I'm going to pass over all the normal Father's Day stuff (love you, honey!), and talk about the two things that made this day extra special.

First, we had Twinkle’s Dedication.

A Baby’s Dedication is very different from infant baptism.  The Bible is very clear that baptism is an outward profession of one’s decision to trust Jesus as Savior.  It doesn’t ‘wash’ away any sin, only the blood of Jesus can do that!    A baby can not make any such decision.

Basically, a dedication is all about the parents!  Dad and Mom publicly declare before the church their promise to God that they will be faithful to raise that baby as a gift from the Lord, to rear him in the ‘nurture and admonition of the Lord,’ and to live as an example of a faithful Christian, so that when that baby is old enough to understand the gospel, he will decide to, by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), accept Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. 

Every Christian parent ought to dedicate their child to the Lord.  We have Hannah’s example in 1 Samuel, and we also see an example of this when Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the temple when he was eight days old.  Now, it may not be a big, public church event, but all parents ought to declare their intentions to the Lord in their hearts.

Baby Dedications have always been special events to me, wonderful memories tucked away in my mother’s heart.  Hero and McAwesome were both dedicated in South Carolina by the same pastor that dedicated my husband as a baby (Herp spit up on him!).  Sweetheart Girl was dedicated by our pastor in Sierra Vista, the same man who married us!  Our Associate Pastor Eli was licensed and ordained recently, and we’ve asked him to do the twin’s and now Twinkle’s dedications.

So that was the first exciting thing that happened.

We went out to lunch and did normal Father’s Day stuff.  The kids gave Dad their gifts, and he gave the appropriate ooos and aaahs.  We attended church that evening, then came home and got the kids into bed.  They were having a hard time falling asleep, and sure enough I heard Hero and McAwesome calling for me.  I went into the room, and McAwesome said something that I cannot for the life of me remember, but I know I didn’t quite understand what he was trying to say.  Then Hero asked if McAwesome was one of the kids that had gotten saved at VBS the previous week.  No, he wasn’t.  Hero was a bit incredulous- he’s been praying for McAwesome since he became a Christian two years ago.

McAwesome then cried out in frustration, “Well, how do I know if I’m saved!?” 

Well, now, I can hardly tell them they should be sleeping by now, so I told McAwesome to come with me, and I took him into my bedroom and we went through the Scriptures.  McAwesome understood everything.  He knew what sin is, and he readily admitted that he was a sinner.  We went through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and how only through Christ can we get to heaven.  McAwesome mentioned hell all by himself, and said that he deserved to go there.  Okay, long story short, when I asked McAwesome if he wanted to ask Jesus to be his Savior or if he wanted to wait, he said he wanted to do it then. 

I was blessed to be the one that led our oldest son Hero to the Lord- it was a Thursday night and Daddy-man wasn’t home.  But this night, Daddy-man was home, so I thought he should get to pray with McAwesome.  I brought McAwesome out to the dining room, and Daddy-man went over things one more time with him, then he helped McAwesome pray. 

My McAwesome is SAVED!! 

McAwesome is always willing to be vocal about not wanting to do something (he’s not a people-pleaser), so I didn’t worry too much about him praying just to make mom and dad happy.  Plus, this is hardly the first time it came up, but he’s just never seemed to fully understand and he’s never wanted to before.  But McAwesome’s also not a talker, so I wondered what type of evidence we might be able to see.  However, he’s told many people on his own that he’s a Christian now, and he’s already mentioned wanting to get baptized.

What a way to close out Father’s Day 2010!