dedication

At our church we don't do baptisms of infants because we believe that it takes an adult decision to follow Jesus. We believe that children are covered by God's grace until they are old enough to make that decision, so we don't fear for their souls like some denominations of the church do. Instead we celebrate their new lives by dedicating ourselves to raising them in the church, teaching them about God and what a relationship with God means, and the church as a whole dedicates themselves to helping the child's parents do this. So on May 18 we dedicated ourselves to teaching Luke about God and about what it means to be in a relationship with God, to teaching him about what God desires for us, a right relationship with him, ourselves, each other and all creation.



Luke also received a "Life Verse", like a hope we have for his future, from the book of Luke chapter 8 verses 47-48, "As for those who come to me and here my words and put them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck the house but could not shake it, because it was well built." This is our hope for Luke, that he will build a strong and lasting relationship with God that is reflected in his relationships with others, creation and himself, because we know that hard times come to everyone, but a strong relationship with God can carry you through the flood waters.

Luke also received a blessing....



...and was carried out to meet the congregation and receive blessings from them by our support couple, Joey and Amanda. We chose a couple from our sunday school class because our parents' sunday school classes had a large influence in both of our lives and we also want that for Luke.
He was pretty happy about the whole thing because he spent the next ten minutes just beaming at his daddy...
...and then his grandma. (-:

Thanks to Dave and Cookie for the pictures,two people from my parent's sunday school class who continue to challenge me to keep working on right relationships.

He is a very smiley boy and started laughing two weeks ago already! The best time to get a laugh is in the morning when I change his clothes because he is generally happy that time of day, he loves being naked, and he is pretty ticklish around the tummy and sides. (-: He is also finally starting to get the hang of peek-a-boo. This morning he got the hang of getting the sheet off his face by himself! So much fun!

In other news I finished working at my old job as a nurse on a medical floor at a very large hospital on Saturday and tonight is my first shift at my new job on the O.B. unit of a much smaller hospital much closer to home! I am very excited about this new job opportunity but it will be a big learning curve so keep me in your prayers.