To our baby..."Bethel"

We continued to pray for you last night.  We prayed for our home, that it would be a place of love, nurturing, guidance, laughter, teaching and discipline.  Those are all essential elements of a childhood, life and family, but they are also vital components to the one thing God longs to build and bless: a home.  We prayed for our future home last night.  As the family and home is attacked and destroyed in America, we prayed not just for God’s blessing on our home, but for our lives within to be blessed with "Bethel."  “Bethel” in the Old Testament is seen in many passages, but significantly in Genesis 28, when Jacob realizes the faithfulness of God and says, this rock and place will be known as “Bethel,” which means “God is here.”  We prayed that God would be in our home, that other people, friends and relatives would long to be in our house because "God is here."

To our growing little one, we did not pray for your education, your friends or even what sport you would play. No my precious one. We began to pray that as we begin the greatest and most difficult job we have ever encountered, we prayed for a unified home, one that has the literal presence and blessing of God, because “unless the Lord builds the house, you labor in vain."