Every Day with Eli: February 12

Today was baby dedication day at church, and we were finally able to dedicate Daisy. It's taken us nine months because they had their first one four days after her birth, then another the day I ran my half marathon. So today was it for us! In our church, baby dedication is a way for parents to commit to raising their child in a Christian home and for the church body to commit to support, encourage, and pray for that family. It's a low-key thing, but it's really important to us.

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera. Fortunately, I realized halfway to church and was able to call my parents and ask them to bring theirs. Unfortunately, my dad hasn't been able to share the pictures with me yet. As soon as I get them I will edit this post to include them, so check back in the next few days!

Update: have a few pictures! Scroll down for them.

One of the things the church asked us to do before the dedication was choose a verse for Daisy. Chris and I thought long and hard about this, and spent quite a while searching the Bible for something that was perfect for Daisy. For Caleb, it was easy - we chose Numbers 14:24 "But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it." When we chose the name Caleb, it was because his Biblical namesake was a man with an unshakable confidence in the Lord. He followed hard after God, even if that meant being different from everyone else. We've always prayed that Caleb would have that same spirit in him.

But Daisy doesn't have a Biblical namesake. Have I ever written here the story of her name? I never would have chosen the name Daisy on my own. But flash back four or five years ago... When Chris and I got married, we talked often of being on a "five-year plan". We would spend the first five years of our marriage getting settled and building a foundation, then we would have babies. It was one of our smarter moments. But when our fifth anniversary came around, we found that we still weren't quite ready to be parents. We still wanted to travel Europe, finish paying off my student loans, finish my Master's degree... so we decided to put off babymaking for a while. My head was totally in agreement with this plan, but my body wasn't. I wanted babies. Though I could see the logic in our decision, I was having a hard time with it emotionally.

But one night, I had a dream. It was one of those vivid, hyper-real dreams; you know, where you can feel every sensation and see every hair? In the dream, I had just given birth to a perfect, beautiful baby girl. Her name was Daisy. The dream gave me such a sense of peace about the whole situation. I felt like God was using the dream to tell me that my time to be a mother would come, and when it came it would be perfect. And then I was ok with waiting.

When we got pregnant with Caleb, I knew for sure he was a girl. I'd had the dream, after all! But he wasn't a girl. When Daisy was born at home, and when she was a perfect baby girl, we knew right away that she would be Daisy. So even though her name technically means "flower", we like to think that it really means "promised flower", because God promised her to us. He's so good.

Boy, that was a long segue. Sorry. What I was trying to say was, there are no verses in the Bible about daisies. Other flowers, yes, but not our flower. So Chris and I ended up choosing Proverbs 31:30 "Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."

We chose this because we think that Daisy is so beautiful and charming. More than anything, we want her to know that though our society values beauty and charm, they do not define her. What defines her is her love for God. Chris and I pray that we can raise our daughter to see that while man looks at the outer appearance, God looks at her heart.

My poor dad tried valiantly to take photos, but the lighting in our church just isn't great. But. Here's our pastor, John, with Daisy, Chris, Caleb, me, and Stacie, who is in charge of the little kids' programs at our church.