Sara-Beth and I were delighted to have Noa baptized by her grandfather, Dan Iverson, this past Sunday. It impacted us greatly, as both the blessing and weight of the following vows were given.
- Do you acknowledge your child’s need of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, and the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit?
- Do you claim God’s covenant promises in her behalf, and do you look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for her salvation, as you do for your own?
- Do you now unreservedly dedicate your child to God, and promise, in humble reliance upon divine grace, that you will endeavor to set before her a godly example, that you will pray with and for her, that you will teach her the doctrines of our holy religion, and that you will strive, by all the means of God’s appointment, to bring her up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?
it was both humbling and encouraging to affirm these vows before our church on sunday. now we pray that as sinners reliant on God’s grace that we will fulfill them each day.
There we are, Nana, Dad, me, and Noa. Its been good for my soul to think in terms of generations this weekend. My love for Noa and sharing with her Christ’s love will be something that I pray is done by Noa for her children, and for generations to come.
As Sara-Beth’s grandpa, Bill Iverson, often says, “Don’t break the chain.” The ‘chain’ being the coventantal love of Christ that God calls for us to teach and show our children.
For the past few months Sara-Beth and I have been helping out with our church’s mission conference which took place this weekend. Wow! it was really encouraging to see so many people turn out for the 4 days events and speakers. Dan Iverson, my father-in-law, did a series of talks on ‘Building Kingdom Families: A Conference on Misisons.’ It was very unique in that he primarily spoke on the story in Genesis about God and his promises to Abraham. Very convicting, especially being a young father and wanting to raise our daughter up in a family the loves Christ and is missional (sharing the gospel with neighbors, both local ‘Jerusalem’ and the world ‘Judea’). I was very thankful for the grace-based approach that Dan took, as he confessed often his sins and shortcomings and his constant dependance on Christ. But he also shared the amazing impact of the gospel on his family and many others, and the blessings of missions.
Above is a picture of the international banquet that was held on Saturday. Sara-Beth and many others helped to create an international atmosphere with amazing food, going along with the worship and teaching of the night.
Just a quick congratulations to my best friend, Miss Margot Humphries, soon-to-be Mrs. Jon Bass on her engagement yesterday. Congratulations, Margot! I am so excited for you and I’m praising Jesus with you!
This is me and Margot and Janna “playing it cool”
So Eric has been getting on me to “blog” for a while now and so I’m finally taking the plunge. (By the way, has anyone notified Webster about this new verb “blog” ? ) So anyway, I’ve thought for a long time about what would be a worthy first blog and the only thing I can think of is the joy of having a daughter.
Before Noa was born, I was 99.9% sure I was having a little boy. In fact, once she came out, they didn’t tell me right away if it was a boy or a girl but I remember thinking to myself, “they don’t even need to tell me, I know its a boy…” And so for the first few hours after she was born, I was just shocked. The crazy thing is, now I can’t even imagine having a boy. It’s as if I have known Noa forever and I knew all along that I was going to have a daughter and it is the most natural thing in the world. I can’t imagine life any other way. I praise the Lord that He knows what we need, and what we want most (even when we don’t know what we want) and He gives it to us because He is good. I praise Him for my precious baby girl, who has brought an abundance of joy into my life and an abundance of beautiful, pink, girly things to top it off!
(This is Noa with her Uncle Matt and Aunt Carly wearing one of her many pretty pink outfits)
