Celebration!!!

What an amazing day! My "baby girl" has made the most important decision of her entire life. She gave her life to Christ over 6 months ago, and today she was baptized. What a blessing it was to be a part of this day for her. I loved hearing her plans as she thought aloud through the week, planning out this special day. She choose 3 songs, each of which has special lyrics, that she wanted played at certain times. David was able to put together a disk with the songs, and our friend, Mike, played them over the sound system at church for us. The first song was Come Now is the Time to Worship. Mackenzie wanted this played at the beginning, as it says, "now is the time to give your heart." The second song was Counting on God. She had the whole song played before the baptism, and she had the part about "the miracle of Christ in me, is the mystery that sets me free, I'm nothing like I used to be" played immediately after she came up out of the water. The last song she choose was Love the Lord Your God, by Lincoln Brewster. She says this is what it is all about. I LOVED hearing her pick these songs and the reason why she picked them. What insight. What a blessing. I do pray that she spends every day of her life serving the Lord with everything that she is and everything that she has and in everything that she does. We are so very proud of her. She choose a small group of around 40 people or so to be there for this celebration. We even had a pizza party afterwards!!! Even in the smallest child size baptismal robe, I had to roll her sleeves up for her hands to stick out! So precious.
She asked her daddy to baptize her. What an honor! He readily agreed and did a fantastic job.


Here is Mackenzie, ready to enter the water.

David met her at the stairs and escorted her to the middle of the baptistery. I then was using only the video camera and did not get a still pic during the baptism. My favorite part was when David picked her up in his strong arms so that she could see out over the edge before setting her down and immersing her.

My joy-filled child of the Lord. She was radiant! As soon as she was back in her dry clothing, she scurried back down to her friends and family. Thanks to Chris for leading the opening prayer and Leland for concluding in prayer circled around Mackenzie. We are all so blessed by our friends and family. We really appreciate everyone that came to celebrate with us today.

The pizza party afterwards!

Wonderful fellowship with wonderful people.

I really do love our friends and our family members, and I appreciate you all!

Mackenzie, Avery, and Arriona. Precious friendships.

Mackenzie, we are proud of you. We love you. We pray that you will make the choice each day of your life to serve the Lord in everything. We pray that He surrounds you with people to keep you close to Him forever. We are forever grateful for His gift to us. We are grateful for Jesus' life and His willingness to die on the cross for our sins. We are awed that He defeated death and lives forever and ever. We are humbled that He has taken our place and forgiven our sins. We will do our best to live our lives in loving service to Him.

A special thanks to my mom, David's parents, and his brother, Zac, for making a special trip to be with us to celebrate this special day.