Today’s portion of my story is Rooted: church membership and baptism.
photo credit: Leslee Mitchell
Sometime before the incident probably around 2nd or 3rd grade or so, Stacy and many other kids accepted Jesus and got baptized. I wasn’t there the day she made “a public profession.” I don’t even remember her baptism, but I remember, my grandmother’s embarrassment that I too didn’t go up with her and get baptized during that time frame or maybe it wasn’t embarrassment so much as she wanted me to go be baptized too. Up to this point, baptism wasn’t mentioned. I didn’t know what it was or why it was important, and so I began expressing interest in being baptized and becoming a “member.”
In hushed whispers, mom and dad talked it over among themselves. They came back to me and said that I wasn’t ready. I was too young, and that it was not my time yet. This was a shroud of mystery that I carried with me for many years. So I became accustomed to hearing the plea at the end of service each Sunday at the “invitation” portion of the service – a call to surrender, be baptized, and ask Jesus into your heart. Tightly I would grip the pew and beg and plead with God to save me each Sunday. And each Sunday I would be too afraid to mention it to my family, to walk forward, to accept the invitational call. I stood firmly planted in the pew aisle, too afraid that I had no clue what salvation really was or meant for me. My heart pounded each Sunday as quickly as it did in health class. Would God, could God, save me?
Every year, during Vacation Bible School (VBS), it was the same story, daily I would hear the message, and daily I would sit right where I was praying in my seat. I remember Ms. Denise sitting me to the side that year of 4th grade VBS to have the talk with me. Did I know the steps? Did I want to pray? Did I want Jesus to live there in my heart? I certainly did. But would the pastor think I had done the right things? Was I good enough to have Jesus in my heart? I didn’t know.
From childhood and into my adolescence, every Sunday, I prayed and hoped I could be saved even though I wasn’t baptized. Earnestly I prayed and to this day, I don’t know which one of those times it “took,” but I know looking back that salvation was mine as a child, even though I didn’t feel the security I should have.
If you missed the start of this series, start here.
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