• last night we got to meet our new niece rebecca. steve's sister had a baby on his birthday! that makes 13 nieces and nephews for us!

• i've been keeping up with marathon training pretty well. this saturday is 19. i think my friend carol is going to bike by me for part of it, so that will be a really nice way to break it up a little. really hard to believe the marathon is in 5 weeks. 

• steve is getting baptized on sunday!! I'm so thankful for how God has worked in our lives. When we were married 15 years ago, I didn't know the Lord, and Steve wasn't walking with Him at the time. He has replaced our hard, unresponsive hearts with soft hearts that long to treasure Him above all things.

i love how john piper describes baptism here:

"What we celebrate in baptism is the mighty work of God in the hearts of children and adults to bring them to repentance and faith in Christ. When we ask if Jesus is their Savior and Lord, we celebrate the eternally important truth that they have received him for their own. When we baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we celebrate the involvement of the whole Godhead in their conversion and their new relation to each Person in the Trinity. When we immerse them in the water, we celebrate the death and burial of Jesus Christ for our sins. When we raise them up out of the water, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and their participation in it. And when they walk out of the baptismal waters, we celebrate the newness of life in love and joy that Jesus gives.
My prayer is that the baptismal candidates themselves and everyone who witnesses their baptism will experience a rekindling of love to God for all he has done for us in making us part of the new covenant people through repentance and faith."