My niece's baptism is this weekend, and in the faith of my family, baptism is the sacrament through which God enters our hearts and binds Himself to us.

The last time I saw her was four months ago—or in her perspective, half a lifetime ago. I tried to guess how much she had figured out . . . if she understood yet that the breeze cooling her face was the same force that made the leaves shudder. If she knew water when she saw it, or if she had to touch it first.

It’s hard to imagine that I was ever the same as this tiny baby, with an entirely unknown life stretching out before her and a million things to learn. But I was.

Which can only mean that one day she’ll be like me. She'll have developed a host of fears and dreams. She will have accumulated a lifetime of memories and will have to balance different relationships in different aspects of her life. She'll search for understanding, ache for guidance, hope for love. She'll need God.

Abigail Wurdeman is a founding member of the Prayables Pray Maker Council, freelance writer and editor. She is a writing coach at Jeannette Katzir, and contributing writer at . Abi lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at .

The Making of a Star

It's not fame that I seek,
but a grand opportunity to shine through service.
Isn't that what follows all the buffing and refining?  
Shininess. You blow Your warm breath on me,
and then rub-rub-rub.
The lessons and the love
are to restore me with a high-gloss finish
that glistens and reflects You.
Give me the courage to neither shrink
nor cloak the living light You put inside me.

"WHAT IS YOUR HOPE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION?"