Living Out Loud.

July was a busy month for us... not only did we celebrate my birthday, our engagement, a couple friend wedding, but also our baptism. After coming home from Jamaica, my heart has been completely changed. It is almost impossible to deny how God works in your life when you are put in a situation that requires you to live out your faith and testify to complete strangers how God has done extraordinary things with a very ordinary person. Coming home, my faith feels renewed and I find myself analyzing every part of my day/life and whether or not a total stranger could see God's love through me.

At church we began a series called "Who am I..." and one of the parts dealt with baptism. Even though I was baptized in elementary school, this sermon resulted in me writing my name on the back of my program to be baptized at Lake Allatoona with my church. Now for the part that caught my heart... Mike talked about how baptism is an outward profession of an inward commitment that we make. Many Christians go through life without being baptized. But in the Bible, we are called to baptism. It is our way of showing our friends, family, loved ones and total strangers the commitment we have made to follow Christ.

To say that I was moved by this sermon is a total understatement. In the weeks that followed, Travis and I had many conversations about baptism, what it means to live your faith out loud, and how we wanted others to see God through our lives. From those conversations, prayers, and tears, we decided to not only get baptized to show the commitment we have made as individuals, but also to show the commitment we are making to one another to honor God through our marriage. I could not think of any better way to start this journey of planning and preparing other than planning and preparing our hearts first.

Not only did we take lots of pictures (thanks to my Daddy), have our sweet ring bearer there to play in the lake with, and eat lots of yummy food, but we were also interviewed and featured in the video short that was played in church. The day that the video played, I wasn't in church... but Travis was... he said it was definitely weird seeing your face that large on the big screen. And now for our 20 seconds of fame. :)