I ♥ Jesus

I love my church. Everything about it. The worship, the sermons, the cute little building, the SACLB, but mostly the people. I love pulling into the parking lot and seeing Baylee and Si come running to my car to get Ally out, being handed the bulletin from Tom who always happily greets us, entering into Bary's amazing worship from up on stage (since we are always walking in 5 minutes late, ha!), Debra who waits for us at the door so she can steal Hudson, LaFaye's weekly scripture memory verse, Pastor E.T.'s Hilarious-ness, and the rest of the congregation who truly feel like family to me. When I hear E.T. say "Let's stand up and greet those around us" it's hugs all around. So many amazing people who have just totally and completely embraced us.

I was so exhausted from Hudson's birthday party yesterday that I went to bed last night thinking a little bedside service might be nice (AKA sleeping in). We never skip church but I stayed up until 3:30 am on Fri night after working for a week straight on Hudson's party, and got up three hours later to complete the finishing touches. So to say the least, I was beat. But sleeping in wasn't in the cards I guess. Text messages started rolling in around 8am from my Pastors wife LaFaye asking if the cookies were ready. (If you come to our church for the first time you get a special Jenny Cookie...We love our visitors!) I rolled myself out of bed and tiptoed downstairs to put the cookies on my porch. Of course the rest of my house was sound asleep, which only happens on Sunday mornings. The total temptation to crawl back into bed was looming but instead I made my way to the bathroom and started getting ready. Soon the rest of the house was awake and the Sunday morning get ready for church madness began. If you ever come over after a Sunday morning you will see that my house looks like a tornado just blew through. It's very challenging to get two kids (and a husband) bathed, dressed, fed, packed, and out the door before 10:40am.

On the way to church the baptism conversation that we have had numerous times in the last couple weeks started again. Dan and I had both been raised in church our whole lives but neither of us had been baptized. Our church was having a baptism service today and I really wanted to be baptized. I had asked Dan if he wanted to do it with me but he felt like he wasn't ready and wanted to us to wait until the next time they had a service. I was so torn, thinking Jesus would want me to be baptized regardless of what my husband did, but on the other hand I thought it would be a wonderful experience to share as husband and wife, so I really didn't know what to do. I tried explaining to him that you don't have to be the perfect Christian, that there is no such thing, but at the same time understood where he was coming from.

E.T.'s entire sermon was completely devoted to the significance of water baptism and the command Jesus gave before His ascension (Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 28:19). The importance was all too clear and as I felt God ringing the doorbell on my heart, I made my decision. I sat there wishing I had brought a change of clothes, and whispered to Dan that I was going to do it. Someone must have been at work on Dan's heart also because he decided he wanted to be baptized as well. God is good.

Luckily someone had some extra clothes for us to change into. We got into the water together with Pastor E.T. and were baptized together. It was very emotional for both of us. I, of course started to cry (because I am a crier), but I honestly had never seen Dan tear up or cry. We shared our story of going back to church as a family, how we wanted to raise our children, how much we loved our VRCC family, and most importantly how we wanted to live our lives for the Lord. It was such a sweet moment. Surrounded with our View Ridge family, seeing the tears in both Pastor E.T.'s and LaFaye's eyes as he shared his love for Dan and I and being able to share that experience with my husband was just a really, really special thing.
What a day.
Thank You Jesus!



P.S. Our church made the front cover of the Herald this morning. Even better, KOMO 4 News got wind of the "miracle at VRCC" and interviewed E.T. tonight for the 11:00 news. Watch it here. Miracles DO happen!