Going up to the house of my God...

This weekend was full of big firsts for Seth. He had his first bottle on Saturday! I'd frozen some milk, and David gave it to him, and he ate like a champ. We've been warned that babies can refuse a bottle if you don't get them started early and give them one regularly, so I think we're going to make this a weekly thing, even if we're not going anywhere. I want to be able to use a babysitter eventually! =) And the week as a whole went great. The first week of his life was euphoria for me, then I crashed and burned on week 2, and then week 3 we reached pleasant equilibrium now that I'm no longer worried that he doesn't know how to suck/isn't getting enough, mommy paranoia, etc. =) But by far the biggest deal of week 3 was taking him to church on Sunday. I was thinking about this, and it's a really big deal for me to take him for the very first time. When I took him through the front doors on Sunday, it was the first time that he joined the family of God to worship the Lord. He has been welcomed into God's family by God's people, and there is something so very special about that. He doesn't know it now, but that was the first of hundreds, hopefully thousands, of times that he'll join with God's local church to praise and learn and grow and fellowship. I can see him as a little boy, squirming as he colors in the pews. I can see him as an older child, taking in some of the first concepts of Christianity, being intriuged for the first time by a sermon. I can see him as a gawky pre-teen, sitting there with his teen study Bible, with a quiet fervor awakening in his heart. I see all my brothers and sisters in Christ from churches that we've served in here and there and everywhere, smiling down at my son and encouraging him in his faith in so many little ways. I see the children's church teachers that he will have, and I see those that I've known in the past, all of them a long line of faithful servants, reaching out in obedience to touch the hearts of children. My son is entering into the Body of Christ. He's only begun, and it will be a long time before he doesn't sleep through the sermon. But we're making a beginning, and though he doesn't know how significant it is for him, I do. We will take him to church, and oh, what he will gain from the Body of Christ! I pray that he will grow to have an excitement in going up to the house of God that rivals that of King David. Hey, I'm a new mom. I can pray extravagantly! =) There is nothing that I want more for my little boy than that he know Christ and find ultimate meaning in his life through Him. I can share with Seth all the big things that God has done in my life and in David's life, and I will. I will make Christ as real and personal to him as I can. But it takes the church universal and triumphant to help raise a child for God. He will learn about Christ in so many wonderful ways that we can't teach him alone through the local church. So on his first Sunday in worship, I celebrate and praise, and I thank God for this great gift for my child, the Body of Christ.