Our Greatest Desire

...is that Evelyn will grow to know and love Jesus with all of her heart, soul, mind, and strength.  On Sunday, we stood before our church body to demonstrate our covenant with God to raise her to know Him.  Covenants are funny things...there's a certain heaviness about cutting covenant with the Father.  The weight of the reality that God has entrusted Evelyn to our care, and that in the short time we have with her, we are charged with teaching her about Him.  It makes you think about how loudly (or softly) you are living your own life for Christ.  Will she see Him through me, through my filthy rags?  Yet, ultimately when we are in covenant with Him, we are perfectly partnering with Him.  If we yield to the Holy Spirit, He will shine vibrantly through our lives and actions.  Sure, there is much that we can do - but trusting Him to do His part in wooing her to Himself may be the best thing that we can do (and perhaps the hardest).  We don't take our responsibility as parents lightly.  My heart aches knowing that ultimately the decision to follow Jesus is hers alone.  I pray that somehow in these few years we have with her, that she will see Him magnified and want to know Him more.  I pray that she will trust Him in ways that I have been to afraid to.  I pray that she will love Him deeply, and that she will genuinely rest in that love - trusting Him...in ways that I have failed to.  I want more for her.  Oh that she will know Him and make Him known!!  And so, we stood before our fellowship of believers and publicly accepted our responsibility to raise her in a godly home, that somehow she will know Him as her own.

Here she is in her pretty dress...which she loved!

Pictures from her baby dedication...

It was great to have my parents there to stand alongside us!  I love the lineage of FAITH that they have passed onto each of their daughters!

Thank you to everyone who prayed with us - and who continue to pray with us!

Some pictures after the worship service...

I really wanted to get a picture of all five of us, as well as one with Evelyn, my Mom, and me...but she was in meltdown mode at this point.  Sunday mornings are tough - with church being smack in the middle of nap time!