Chapter 1 - Waking: Baptism
Waking: Baptism
What a fascinating conversation it would be to gather together all of the people in your life and have each one share what it’s been like to be pursued by Jesus in his or life! Perhaps some of them are still being chased; maybe there are some who keep trying to ignore His gentle and persistent footsteps following behind them, but for those who have been gathered into His arms and walk beside Him now, what a vast array of stories you might hear!
Let me share a bit of my journey with Jesus. My story begins much the same way as many Christians - being baptized as a baby, growing up in a Christian home, attending Sunday School and church most every week of my childhood years, having devotions as a family after dinner each night, sitting in Confirmation classes every Wednesday night in 7th and 8th grade, going to a Christian elementary school, high school, and college… I remember accepting Jesus in my heart at a Bible camp when I was 8 years old. Let’s pause there a moment, as this really is a memorable and meaningful - not to mention humorous - story in my life.
Jack and Jill Bible Camp - - not really sure who named this camp… not even sure why I went, to be honest. But there I was, in August of 1984, doing all the camp kinds of things. Then one day at chapel, we began singing, “God is so good.” It’s a simple song - extremely repetitive and not overly theological or penetrating. But even to this day, that song can shake me up inside. I felt emotional and agitated, like this truth was too much for me to handle in that particular moment, and I got up from my seat in the chapel and quietly went outside. That’s how I did most things in life: quietly. I don’t like to be noticed or in the spotlight; trying to get people’s attention is far off my personal radar. I sat outside the chapel and tried to figure out what was going on inside me. Tears streamed down my face, and I was sobbing. I was (and still am) a crier when I’m emotional.
A few minutes into the song, a counselor came out. She had honey-colored hair and glasses, and that’s about all I remember about her. She looked at me and asked me if I was okay. I nodded wordlessly and then attempted to speak. “I think Jesus wants to come into my heart,” I managed to share. She looked meditative and contemplative, and I had some expectations of what the next moment should look like, I think. But when she did open her mouth, she took me off-guard. “I think you’re probably homesick,” she said in a soothing and somewhat patronizing voice. As I said, I was eight. But even at the tender age of eight, I knew that was not the direction that this conversation should be headed at this poignant and precious moment.
I don’t remember if I protested or argued or tried again or simply just agreed that homesickness did indeed perhaps contribute to me being more in touch with my emotions, but at some point, she seemed to feel that her resolution of the reason for my tears had solved things and went back inside. After she went back into the chapel, I closed my eyes, I folded my hands, and I accepted Jesus’ knocking on my heart’s door and invited Him into my life. I came home from that camp, as I often tell people, with “Jesus in my heart and lice in my hair”. My brother probably has more powerful memories of this introduction to nits and lice than I did as I had thin fine hair and didn’t really experience the full power of the infestation. However, his thick hair ended up having to be buzzed off in order to get rid of all of the lice that made their home there. You can look at the school pictures taken in the fall of the 1984-1985 school year as evidence of this…
But I digress. The most incredible part of my Christian walk that really made it all personal happened in the fall of 1999. I was in my second year of teaching and living part-time at a campus ministry house 60 miles from my parents’ house. I was in a good place spiritually in many ways, as I had memorized many long passages of Scripture and would recite them on my long drives as well as praying out loud - but I also was still floundering significantly sometimes in the aftermath of the tsunami from my 13 year old sister being killed in a bike accident in my 18th year of life. The campus ministry that I was involved in strongly encouraged people to “take the plunge” and go through the rite of baptism. It was a dominant message, frequently mentioned, and I could feel God pushing me toward that decision. It’s hard for me to admit it now, but I didn’t want to do it. I felt like getting baptized a second time would be redundant. I was concerned about how my parents would react. But as I walked around in the dappling of the fall-colored leaves at a retreat center with my boyfriend and talked with him about what I felt that God was putting on my heart, I felt my dissension and refusal slipping away, and I let the campus minister know that I wanted to go through with this step.
Later that day, I was baptized, and I can point to this particular weekend as a time when I felt like my walk as a Christian - an independent and new adult - really began. But I will never forget the feeling that I had in the weeks leading up to that surrender of how Jesus was pursuing me and nudging me to make that choice. This sub-heading of Chapter 1 brought me back down these pathways as I began reading this book.
What do you remember about the times in your life when Jesus pursued you? How do these milestones and memories instantly bring you back to a place of vulnerability? Or brokenness? Or surrender? Or relief? Keep those times in your heart, and share your stories with people to articulate evidence of God’s great and powerful love that is always present in our lives.
