BAPTISM!!!

Sunday, December 26, on the Feast of the Holy Family, we presented our beautiful daughter for the Sacrament of Baptism.

It was surreal and beautiful.  


J and I have been praying for a verse to claim for Abigail.  We have a verse for our marriage (blog title), and hope to have one for each of our children.  The Lord gave us the most beautiful and perfect verse for Abigail.  It is Romans 8:15b.

You received a spirit of adoption,

through which we cry, "Abba, Father." 

Through Abigail's Baptism, the Lord is helping us to understand and live the reality of our adoption into His family.  At birth, we were blessed to adopt our daughter.  At Baptism, the Lord adopted His daughter!  Abigail's name means "a father's joy".  ABBA- Abigail.  The verse is absolutely perfect.  We framed the verse for her, and wrote her the following letter.

December 26, 2010


Dearest Abigail Chiara,


At birth, we adopted you, and our dreams at last began to come true. Through the miracle of adoption, we are privileged to call you our daughter and long-awaited gift, and you are able to call us Mom and Dad. We are a family.


Now, at Baptism, the Lord God has adopted you! He has brought you into His family and made you His daughter. You are able to call the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the Lord of lords and King of kings by the name that Christ taught us to call upon him: Abba, Daddy. As a daughter of the King, you are a true Princess. You are remade a co-heir with Jesus Christ and through him will inherit Heaven and Earth one day! All that is His he will give to you. You will rule in glory with Jesus, together with the angels and the saints!


As our daughter, you have received an identity and a name, ______. You have come into a family who loves and adores Jesus because of what he has done for us. We seek to “magnify the Lord” with our lives, together with all the saints, and now we formally welcome you into the joy of life in his Kingdom and his Church.


As a daughter of the Father, you also receive an identity and a name, the name of his Son. You have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavens. (Eph 1:3) You were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. (Eph. 1:4) You are LOVED and destined for adoption to Himself through Jesus Christ. (Eph 1:5) In Christ you have been forgiven and redeemed (Eph. 1:7), bought for a price.


You are a citizen of Heaven (Eph. 2:19) and ambassador of Christ (2 Cor. 5:20). You are a member of His body (1 Cor. 12:27) and temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16). You were buried with Him in baptism, but raised with Him through faith in the power of God. (Col 2:12)


You are called to be salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matt. 5:13-14). You are called, as “God’s chosen one, holy and beloved” to put on “heart-felt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your heart.” (Col. 3:12-15)


We love you, and are eternally grateful for you.


All our love,
Daddy & Mommy