A Special Baptism

Many of you may know that last weekend Sawyer was baptized at the 9:30am service at Redeemer Lutheran in Austin. All of our family and many of our friends were in town including Sawyer's Godparents, Jerry and Gretchen Hays.

Some of you may know, Jerry and Gretchen's son, Caleb, died in a helicopter crash, over the Christmas holiday break. Shortly after the accident we began to consider Caleb's middle name, Nathaniel, to use as a middle name, if we had a boy. When Sawyer was born, we knew Nathaniel was the perfect middle name for him. Nathaniel means Gift of God, which Sawyer most definitely is to us, but it would also be in memory of Sarah's godson, Caleb, who we love and miss!



The baptism and the whole weekend was an event where Caleb was really missed. We laughed about the fact that Sabine was safe from the hose (which Caleb always enjoyed to spray on her). We remembered how much Caleb loved swimming and jumping off the diving board at our neighborhood pool. As we all stood around the baptismal fount that morning we rejoiced that God claimed Sawyer as one of His own, just like He did for Caleb nine years ago. There were some feelings of sadness, as we just missed having Caleb standing there with us.

Following the baptism, we returned to our seats and continued to follow the order of worship. A couple of minutes later, Gretchen elbowed me and pointed over toward Jerry. Noah, Jerry and Gretchen's other son, had collected a kids worship bag (coloring books, pencils, puzzles, etc) when we entered the church. Noah had began coloring, using a Ziploc of crayons he had pulled from the worship bag, once we returned to our seats. When Jerry glanced down to look at Noah, he noticed a name was written on the bag.

The name written on the bag was Caleb. It was an immediate reminder that Caleb may not have been physically with us for the baptism, but he was with us in spirit.