spoiler alert: the last picture is the best

i got to take (most) of the day off from packing for my birthday. it was a full and fun day. but the best gift came two days before, on father's day. that's when my three older kids, and myself, were baptized...

 

(he had the most precious look of anticipation on his face the whole time)

each made their own decision to do so. jack has been waiting since the last baptism service for it to be "his turn". i was baptized as an infant and have never sensed the need to be baptized as an adult. but i didn't want to just jump on the bandwagon because "everybody's doing it" or because we are about to leave this precious church that we have been with since it's inception. so i had decided not to, until i sensed god telling me i needed to humble myself and be baptized.

it was meaningful experience to share as a family...

each one of us wrote a testimony that was read. my kids wrote theirs on their own. they were precious. i won't share theirs because it is their story to tell. but here is mine...

I grew up in a home where I heard about and felt the love of Jesus consistently. When I was about 8 years old, it was my older sister, Amy, who led me to pray a prayer of faith asking Jesus to cover my sins and give me eternal life. In college, my life was transformed as I came to a more complete understanding of how desperately I needed Jesus as my Savior and my Lord.

Since then, I have walked with Jesus through the ups and downs of life. I have had moments of great faith and seasons of deep doubt. I have seen God’s goodness and experienced His love in both joy and pain.

Though I have had many opportunities to publicly proclaim my faith in Jesus Christ over the years, I have never been baptized as an adult. I choose to be baptized now as a way to humble myself in obedience to Christ. I am identifying with Jesus in His death and resurrection. I am not content to live a “nice Christian life”. I want to experience the supernatural power of God in my life as a wife, mother, sister, friend and ambassador for Christ.

Philippians 3:7-11

7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

                                                                       

It is with great joy that I share this decision of faith with my 3 oldest children and my family at North Pointe.

as emma was being baptized my mother-in-law leaned over to bill and whispered "happy father's day". happy father's day, happy birthday, oh happy day...