April 20, 2016

A Day to Remember…

Well, I wasn’t actually planning on making this a blog post. Well I was… until I left home without my camera last Wednesday evening… and so then I wasn’t…. and then the sweetest new neighbor (at our OHW home) asked her husband to photograph us… and so now I am! Wow did that make any sense? The super talented David Cannon Photography (@davidcannonphoto) saw me at Winter’s preschool, introduced himself and then let me know that he had photographed our baptism last week. Seeing as though I was still bummed about rushing out the door without my camera, I was beyond thankful and excited. And now even more excited to be able to share this important evening with all of you…

So what evening am I referring to? Well, the most important evening so far in AddieBelle’s life thus far and quite possibly mine as well. You see, over the last two years, we have become more and more involved at our local church, Grace Monroe. After “church hopping” for quite a long time now, we fell in love with Grace after moving to Monroe a little over two years ago. Although ALWAYS a believer, I can’t say that we’ve ever been really involved or honestly even attended church on a super regular basis. We used to go in spurts and then get busy and not go for periods of time but it was always something we both wanted and definitely needed. Mark and I both really really wanted to find a church home, to get involved, to teach our girls more than the praying basics but never really found a place where we felt at home. Needless to say, we have become addicted. I am rather confident I am not speaking “religiously correct”… rather from the heart. I use the word addicted because since joining Grace, we have become addicted. It’s no longer a “we should go to church tomorrow”. It’s become “we want to go to church tomorrow”. We make it a priority, we look forward to it and truly feel at home there. Coming from a self-described “not SUPER active believer”, this has become really huge for us. Not even just huge but honestly life changing for our family. And although there is SO much more to faith than attending church on Sundays, this has become the first step that WE needed to make everything else fall into place.

AddieBelle has literally changed before our eyes since we first attended Grace two years ago. She has become the Bible loving child that I always dreamed of and I am so proud of how much she has grown in her faith. So when she decided to profess her faith through baptism, I decided to join her. Having been raised Methodist, I was christened as a child but never baptized through immersion. Last Wednesday Grace hosted a KidzLife baptism evening at a beautiful location in Monroe. Although the much warmer baptismal was an option, I chose the more picturesque lake. AddieBelle was not as excited about the rather freezing cold alternative. Mark was there alongside our pastor which made the evening that much more memorable. And I am blessed to be able to share this beautiful evening with all of you…

(My Dress)

XOXO, Brittany Hayes