Keeping up with the Manns: The Best Ways to Battle the Heat

It's hot. There's no other way to put it. Every summer, Texas undergoes a daily battle with the heat and this summer is no different. Sometimes it blows me away to look at the temperature on my mirror in my car. The other day I was driving home from work and this is what I saw...

Now, that's borderline ridiculous! But what better way to battle the heat than at the pool? Friday after work, I spent some time at the pool with Carly, one of my YoungLife girls and it was a blast!

Well, hello Carly!

Notice the hat.. not only is it for fashion (hehe), but it's shielding my face from the scorching sun. I used to stay out in the sun all day everyday in the summers and kept my tan lines year round as a result. Now, I'm older, wiser, and I have a job so my skin can at times seem blinding and it doesn't have near the stamina it used to at deflecting a bright red sunburn. So I opted for the floppy hat to at least cover my face and chest. After about 3 hours, I had to tell Carly I was done--if I stayed out much longer I was going to be burnt like yesterday's toast. This is also a new thing for me, I used to stay at the pool as long as I possibly could even making my family bring me dinner and a change of clothes as they picked me up on their way to grandma's when I was little. Now, I'm trying to see how long I can actually stand it out in the sun!

So I took myself home to enjoy a nice cool shower and a 2 hour nap! Later that night, my parents came in town for the weekend and Brandon and I met them at Outback for dinner. We never go to Outback and I wasn't really sure why, but now I remember..

Anyway, the reason my parent's were in town was for my baptism!

Being raised in the Episcopal church, I was sprinkled as a baby and then confirmed in the eighth grade. The thought of being immersed never crossed my mind until I transferred to private Christian school in high school--and then it became almost a sense of rebellion. Through high school I never had it actually said to me that I was not saved because I hadn't been immersed, I knew that's what some people thought. What I found was that most of those people had been told by 'the church' that immersion was required for salvation and if it wasn't, why risk it?

That is was I didn't like about it. No one could give me a solid reason for why it was so important, just that they weren't willing to risk it, and I was not smart walking on that thin line--I might as well just get it over with. I turned away from it and decided that wasn't what my faith was about. In my teenage rebellion, I decided I wasn't going to do things because 'the church' said it was what I needed to do. I wasn't going to do things and make decisions just so I didn't risk it. I wanted to have a purpose and a reason behind those things that I did so that in the case that I met someone like myself with questions, I would have answers, and answers that we backed by scripture.

My Freshman year at ACU, my parent's joined a new church in Houston and because neither of them had been baptized by immersion (my Dad raised Catholic and my Mom raised Episcopalian) they were asked, as representatives of their church to be unified in baptism and to follow the example Christ Himself gave and be immersed. They agreed and through prayer, decided it was time for them to die to themselves and to become new in Him. I was there at the service when they were baptized and I watched in a sense of confusion. I was still under that sense of rebellion. I had rebelled from the thought of that by the environment I was in and the friends I had surrounded myself in from high school. I couldn't understand exactly why they had chosen to be immersed.

From that moment on, I slowly gained a knowledge of what it meant to be immersed, and more specifically, what it meant to me. I knew it was something I was probably going to have to do if I was ever going to become a member at a church other than the Episcopal church, but I wanted it to be while I was at the church I wanted to place membership at. All through College, I loved going to Beltway, and I knew what they believed was what I believed and had believed since that rebellion in high school, but I never thought I was going to be staying in Abilene. Little did I know, I was going to get married, live here, and fall in love with this city. So to me, this baptism wasn't about checking off all the required things I needed to do before I could become a member. It wasn't even completely about following Christ's example (which, was definitely a big part, don't worry). It was about me getting over my pride. Letting go of my rebellion I had in high school and showing that it's not about me, but about Him and only HIM. It was my symbolic release of those things I had held on to and fought for, for so long, with no real reason.

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." Matthew 3:16-17

With no further ado, here's some pictures!