Baby dedication -- another look
These couple of weeks when I went to Hillsong women, I felt some messages, but have been reluctant to put down to words. It's been a bit heavy. I tried to run away from it, but the message somehow would still get back before I could forget all about them.
So yesterday Bobbie Houston was actually sharing some stories about cruely in some third world countries. She read a story from a book which a girl shared her experience of being circumcised at 12 by her parents, the excruciating pain, the lying of her parents and incredible stupidity of the whole practise in the culture. Quite a lot of the audience didn't cope with the story very well. Heaps of people stoop up and left. Some fainted. Some had to be taken out by other people around them. Most people cried. One of the key words in the story was, the girl said, a kind person(missionary) gave me a hand and brought me out of my misery.
Along with the message, God's been dealing with me with the concept of baby dedication.
When we had our three children, we gave them each formal dedication. Ellie was dedicated twice, as the first one was not "formal" enough, and we didn't have a certificate, but was dedicated by Brian Houston. So we gave Ellie and Jamie another dedication, and they were dedicated by Darlene Zchech. Kate's dedicated by the pastors of another church, who have strong prophetic annointing. It's a popular practise now I think in Christian circle.
But up until now I think I've understood only half of what it meant to have children dedicated: we want God's protection over our children. But the other part, which is for His service, I think I've neglected.
This extreme example came into my mind: God sent Jesus to die for sinners. It's one thing to go suffer and die yourself, it's completely another thing to send (and watch)your child to be whipped and die.
When Jesus was telling Peter about his forthcoming turmoil, Peter was saying kind words that most of us would say.But Jesus said,"Get behind me Satan" . So in another words, would our kind intentions and thoughs that our children would not get hurt are those thoughts that belong to the same category of "get behind me Satan?" Have we been over protective and possesive to our children that God can't even touch them and use them? In baby dedications we said, we give our children to you, Father, but in reality we hold on to them so tight that they can't even belong to Father's plans.
Is it heavy for you? It's quite heavy for me. I know there's always this calling for missions for me. But until I(and especially my husband!) could get over this point, I will never be able to go.
Friday, June 11, 2004
