Holy Water
God is in the small moments.
The other night, a few friends and I were talking about our upbringings — specifically in terms of religion.
We each shared our church’s traditions and how they all did things differently. It got me to thinking about my own baptism. Because my family switched churches from one who baptized teenagers to one that baptized babies around the time I was in 3rd grade, I missed the magic window.
I was the only one in my 6th grade confirmation class who had not previously been baptized. No big deal, of course. I was baptized on the same day I was confirmed. I remember very little about confirmation class, unfortunately, except for my friend setting the clock ahead so that we would get released early. We were more interested in socializing than in learning about our church’s history and the faith that was being offered to us.
What I remember even more clearly is that a few summers before, on a family vacation in Florida, I was at the pool with my mom and sisters. Somehow I told Mom that I felt left out at church because the rule as I understood it was that you could take communion if you’d been baptized. All my friends were able to, but I never was.
I remember vividly my mom telling me that she could baptize me right there. I told her that was really silly, but she said that it didn’t have to be in a church or by a minister. Mom told me that as long as I accepted Jesus as my own Lord and Savior and that I knew he had died to wash all of my sins away then it was ok. I think she was joking, but looking back, when she held my nose and leaned me back into the water… that’s when I really knew life as a follower of Christ was mine. The fact that I remember this occasion so vividly rather than my official baptism reemphasizes for me the true nature of my faith. God is with me all the time. God’s love isn’t an occasion limited to one day or one building. It’s with us in the menial, in the tired, in the every day. She’s with us in the pool, surrounded by smiling parents and laughing sisters, and kids in floaty wings. He’s with me now, surrounded by those same smiling parents and sisters, and friends that have become my extended family. And there are still those kids, only now they’re young adults trying to stay afloat.
As I get older I understand this more and more. It’s the thought that counts. It’s the true intent rather than the superficial. How could I have thought that moment where I was brought toward faith by my mother was any less real? I understand the need for a church and recognize the good that it does, of course. But it all comes down to my relationship with God on my own. It’s between me and Her.
