To Charlotte on your dedication

The 26th of June 2021 will forever be a day we mark on the calendar as a special day because it was the day we got to stand in front of our closest friends and our family in a very small and intimate ceremony under the open skies, surrounded by the beautiful grassy lawns of De Charmoy Estate, and dedicate our second born to the Lord.

My vision for Charlotte’s special day was a simple but beautiful ceremony under trees, with beautiful flower arrangements by the incredibly talented Love Laugh on a wooden structure, scattered rose gold chairs on the lawn and a raw wood trestle table filled with delicious food, surrounded by our closest friends and family.

Officiated by our our church pastor, Wayne Taylor of Grace Family Church, we stood before 15 of our best friends, our parents and my brother to share our vision and wishes for Charlotte’s life before having the Wayne’s hand pray over Charlotte’s life and the role we will play in raising Charlotte with God in her heart.

Together Brett and I read this letter in which we sat and wrote together as part of our promises, wishes and vision for Charlotte’s journey of faith in her life…

OUR LETTER:

Charlotte Grace, by the grace of God spoken to life through your sister by our Lord. It was after a longing in my heart that didn’t go away after months and months of being deeply aware of this yearning that I prayed a prayer to God and I asked him to speak to me. To give me clarity. A week later your dad shared what he thought was a funny story of how your big sister told him in the car on the drive to school that mommy must put a baby in her tummy and it must grow big… Only God!

After sharing this prayer with your dad, we began a year long journey of relentless faith without fear and trust in God’s promise. Despite month after month not falling pregnant with you, looking back we know God was paving the way, preparing our hearts, our home, our world for you. You were always part of God’s plan and by the grace of God you were gifted to us.

You are your sister’s biggest blessing. She has loved you before you even started to grow. She knew before your dad and I confirmed our pregnancy that you were her baby sister, Charlie.

Charlotte Grace, by the grace of God…

You are a child of God and we thank God for your life every single day. You have taught us so much about trusting in God’s promise, choosing faith over fear and listening to His word. Each and every day I am reminded through your presence that your life is a testament of God and our faith in Him.

As we stand here today before God, our family, our closest friends and, we raise you up and dedicate you, our precious gift and treasure to God. We bring you before God and give him complete authority over your life. We pray you will be blessed with love, grace and an eternal relationship with Jesus.

We can hardly imagine that one day you will be grown up and starting a life of your own. We know that day will come far too soon, so today we want to share with you our hopes and dreams for your life.

We pray that you will be rooted in God’s love and grasp how wide, long, high and deep the love of Christ is for you!

We pray that you will grow you to be a woman of courage. We hope that you will have the courage to follow your heart and not be afraid to stand up against what you know is wrong.

Our prayer is that you’ll grow to be a woman of integrity and honesty, that you will make wise choices and seek God’s big heart in the big decisions and in the small ones.

We pray that you will become a woman of compassion. Never take your life or blessings for granted and be generous in your resources and your heart.

Most of all we pray that you choose God, over and over again, each day of your life and that you seek His hand over your life. We pray that you will always choose to extend grace – towards yourself and those around you and that you always see the good in every person you meet and in every situation you are put in.

We pray that your God fearing heart touches, inspires and helps all those you come in contact with. We pray that God’s will for your life moves you, shakes you and encourages you to never underestimate your potential, your strength and your resilience.

We pray you know that God will always go before you, that you hear His word speak to you and that you see His shine on your face.

Although you are just eight months old, we can see that you are a strong, happy-go-lucky, loveable little girl with a calm and gentle spirit. We pray that you will stay strong and never forget that you are secure in the arms of our heavenly Father.

We still cannot believe that you are our daughter and we were chosen to be your parents. We are so grateful for the incredible blessing you are to our lives. Today we commit to creating an environment that will help you discover and develop the most important relationship you will ever have, a relationship with Jesus. We promise that we will do our very best to be available whenever you need to talk, and support you in everything you hope to achieve.

We pray that God will continue to bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and give you peace, and may you go out into the world confident and unafraid. We hope that your heart will hear the word, like seed sown on good soil, accept it, and produce a crop – a hundred times what was sown and be a positive influence in the lives of those around you. We pray that we will be examples to you of what living a life of obedience to God looks like. We pray that you find joy in your walk with God.

We promise to love you unconditionally forever,

Love, mom and dad

A day we, as a family will treasure forever. Charlotte’s life is a true testament of God’s grace and to stand before our friends and family, and God and acknowledging God’s hand over her life was incredibly emotional! We are so thankful for her and what she brings to our lives as well as her proud big sister.

After the ceremony we took some family photographs – we will treasure them forever! Both Brett and I had lumps in our throats looking at our girls in their pretty white dresses.

Our guests were treated to delicious gourmet grazing boxes put together by Grazed. The individually packed boxes for each guest included; crackers, cheese, camembert, cold meats, hummus, a slice of cream cheese, olives, cherry tomato, cucumbers, carrots, a strawberry, a cherry, a raspberry, blueberries, grapes, dried apricot, pretzels and a few nuts and the kiddie boxes included candy.

We didn’t want any sharing of food and felt it was the most responsible thing to ensure there is no touching of food and these beautifully packed and presented grazing boxes by Grazed was absolutely perfect for our guests to grab from the table and eat on their socially distanced chair on the grass with their respective family. And who doesn’t love a little grazing box! My best!

It was a hit with the kiddies too who eagerly sat on the carpet and ate their boxes, and candy!

I love that owner Raeesa of Grazed adapted them so sweetly for the kids by including some colourful candy, pretzels, Smarties, a Laughing Cow cheese instead of camembert and topped it off with a fun candy cane instead of a pennygum which featured on the adult boxes along with beautiful personalised tags on each box. The attention to detail was absolutely incredible and such a brilliant idea for events and gatherings where catering is required – the perfect solution to food given our current situation.

It wouldn’t be a Delport celebration if there wasn’t a Chateau Gateaux cake included! Our favourite ‘naked’ cake to dress up – the Vanilla Dream was included on the table for guests to be served and enjoy with a cup of coffee from The Chocolate Garden restaurant on the De Charmoy Estate property which was brought through to our guests to enjoy.