special days

For one reason [baptism] or another [birthday upon birthday], the month of October has been full of celebration.  Despite my being rather tired, I do love a good party or reason to celebrate.  Earlier this month, we had the sweet opportunity to have our littlest love baptized at our church.  Gathering our family together along with our friends who make up our church family to celebrate the blessing of baby Hatcher was so sweet.  I felt like my heart was so full, and it was truly a joy to be able to thank God for the blessing of this adorable boy and to pray for Him to know and believe and hope in Jesus.  This go-round of baptism was especially poignant for me . . . as with our other children, we prayed and prayed for the life of this little one and were thrilled (well, Hatch had some stress-induced sweating, but that came to pass) to find out that I was pregnant again.  Having our older three a little bigger and a bit more able to understand the baptism and the celebration for our family was so sweet. 

  

have I mentioned that I adore this baby?  I could eat him up.  he is wearing the same baptism suit that hudson (I think!?) wore and that uncle christopher wore.

 

At our church, when  a child is baptized, the following questions are asked (or questions quite similar to these) of the parents:

1. Do you acknowledge your child’s need of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, and the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit?

2. Do you claim God’s covenant promises in his behalf, and do you look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for his salvation, as you do for your own?

3. Do you now unreservedly dedicate your child to God, and promise, in humble reliance upon divine grace, that you will endeavor to set before him a godly example, that you will pray with and for him, that you will teach him the doctrines of our holy religion, and that you will strive, by all the means of God’s appointment, to bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?

For some reason, this time, making this commitment and stating these vows in unison with Hatch felt like a powerful thing to me.  In a season of life where so much of our lives is made of what we do (he’s hungry—feed him, he’s tired—put him down, he needs to be held—pick him up), I loved stopping to talk about and pray for what our hopes are for our baby.  It was sweet to be able to articulate and affirm what we hope and pray for for sweet Hatcher (as well as his siblings) in front of his siblings!  We pray for these little ones to know and love and believe in Jesus, and to be quick to confess their sin and turn and repent—may they always know Jesus’ love for them!  And, it is always such a rich gift to know that we are not in it alone—our family and friends at church all stood with us to publically commit to loving and caring for Hatcher in Jesus’ name.  If that doesn’t make a mama cry, then I don’t know what will!

Such a sweet, special day for our family.   I am so very thankful!

 

And . . . in case you were wondering:   Yes, there have been multiple children baptized by their siblings in our bathtub since Hatcher’s baptism day.  Hilarious!

 

this, to me, is amazing.  for so many reasons . . . I love it.