Rylee's Baptism

Today, Rylee was baptized! On April 29th, Rylee decided to ask Jesus to live in her heart. She's been asking questions about how to make this decision for about a year. We've been talking about how Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins; and how if we ask Jesus to forgive our sins and ask Him into our lives, we can live forever with Him in Heaven. Rylee became very emotional the evening that she told me she was ready to ask Him into her heart - she knew she needed to make a decision to follow Christ in order to live with Him eternally. I told Rylee once she makes this decision, Christ becomes a close friend and she can count on Him to be with her through anything while living life here on earth. This also means that we give Him the "driver's seat" over our earthly lives - we allow Him to help us make all our choices. Rylee has learned that we obediently follow our decision to ask Christ into our hearts with baptism. This is an outward symbol of what has happened inside our hearts - the cleansing of our sins to make us like new! When Christ forgives us of our sins, He literally WASHES them away. When Rylee first asked Jesus into her life, she was very frightened of this step. We prayed that God would give her the strength and courage to do this, and you know what, HE DID!

These images aren't very clear - hopefully our video will be much better! One picture is of Rylee under the water in the baptistery - the other is of her drying off with her towel after stepping out of the baptistery.