Since Rosemary was born, I’ve had three consistent prayers for her:
- That she would be healthy;
- That she would always know how much she is loved; and
- That she would, one day, know and follow Christ.
This weekend, we took steps towards the latter by getting Rosemary dedicated at our church. Although our church offers baptisms or dedications for babies (due to the diverse backgrounds of its congregation), Chris and I decided that dedication was the path we wanted to take for a few reasons. First of all, we don’t believe it’s our decision to make for Rosemary. We want her to come to that decision of her own free will one day and to be able to experience the baptism herself. Secondly, we felt like this time was really more about the commitment we were making to raise her in the church. As such, it made sense that it be our declaration that we were dedicating her to the Lord.
Rosemary did wonderfully through the whole thing. She wore the most precious little christening gown and bonnet that we had embroidered with her name and birthday. She also wore a bracelet my parents gave her for the dedication and the cutest little gold ring that my grandma, and her almost-namesake, Rozanne McKee wore during her baptism in the 1920s. She was happy throughout the service and contentedly watched the pastor as he spoke. My favorite part was that we sang “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” at the beginning of the service because that was actually the very first song I heard after Rosemary was born. I had put Sufjan Steven’s version of the song on my delivery playlist, and it was the first one to play when I got to listen to the playlist after surgery. Rosemary truly has been a blessing in our lives and I am so thankful that we get to spend every day with her. We will continue to pray that we raise her in a way that she has a personal relationship with Christ.
