First borns tend to have extravagant scrapbooks, am I right? I spent at least one million hours pouring it Mal's! Today I dug them out in search of May 29, 2005! The day our 8 week old Mallory Suzanne was Baptized in front of friends and family by our beloved Pastor Patrick Wildman at Christ Church Anglican. I am so very thankful we come from a long history of love for Jesus Christ and the tradition of Infant Baptism. It is special to me. It is important to me.
It is important to me that our babies had this beautiful ceremony. It is important to me that Scotty and I chose God Parents for each of them and all stood up together in front our family our Lord and Savior to declare that we would raise our children to love and serve the Lord and others. I would not change one thing about choosing infant Baptism for our babies. I still do and always will believe in one Baptism for the forgiveness of all Sins.
So much has changed since this beautiful Baptism day. We have lost Scott's grandma on this earth but we know she is with Jesus. Our family has grown and grow and grown!
We have made 4 major moves including 3 states and Canada!
We witnessed miracles in Steph and Kevin's lives being saved from their near fatal accident. We survived 19 nights in a Canadian hospital as 28 day old Brody battled sepsis.
We have lived some life and we have seen some things. But we have lived well and laughed endlessly and felt covered by the Lord every single step of the way!
Through our moves around the state and country we transitioned to attending Non-denominational Bible Churches. We found amazing churches and communities every where we lived. We will never not love and appreciate Christ Church Anglican. It is such a special piece of our family. During all of our moves Mallory absolutely fell in love with giving back! She now spends countless hours volunteering in children' ministry and special needs ministry at vacation bible school at thrift stores and at harvesters. It has been an absolute privilege as her mama to watch her heart for volunteer work and giving to others grow.
Mal loves to spend her free time with her Grace group and at Grace activities. She loves to pour into her devotionals and her quiet time. She loves the Lord. Her walk with Him is important to her and she asked us if we would be okay with her being Baptized, again.
Baptized, again? But what about the huge Baptism she had? What about one Baptism for the forgiveness of all sins? Coming from a large family of Catholics/Anglicans it is a question being asked of us. We understand and I myself had to really take some time to pray over this. So the big difference in our kids story than my story....I was Catholic/Episcopal my whole life so I had the opportunity to go through Confirmation and confirm my own choice to Love and Follow the Lord. It is a wonderful memory of mine and such an important part of the fabric of who I am. I still remember so fondly those friends and those mentors and can clearly see my Confirmation day in my mind. I was surrounded by friends and family and all 4 of my Grandparents. It was so special. I understand Mallory wanting to stand up and choose Jesus for herself. I really do.
Grace does not have Infant Baptism so they do not have Confirmation...they do one Baptism when you are ready to make the choice for yourself. Mallory really wants to make the choice for herself and proclaim her own decision to love and follow the Lord. We LOVE that. We love that Mal is her own person. We love that she is choosing Jesus. Every day of her 14 years that has been my prayer that she may know and love the Lord. I see it in her all the time. I see Him in her.
I am so excited and humbled and grateful and all the FEELS to watch her be Baptized at 8:00 am on Easter morning! She feels it is so special to be Baptized on Easter! Of course my girl being who she is volunteering at 3 of the other services on Easter....so 8:00 am it is! I can NOT think of a better way to start our Easter morning!
If you are home for Easter and would like to join us for an amazing start to the day come on out to Grace Church South Overland Park bright and early and sit with us! We would love to worship with you and Mal would love to see your loving faces! You each are so very important to us! I mean....if you are an original blog follower...you are actually a saint! I love y'all! I am thankful for y'all! HAPPY EASTER!! HE IS RISEN!!
