I spend an awful lot of time on myspace. I’d like to blame it on my age, or say that my sisters got me addicted to it, but know that neither of those two things are at fault. At any rate, I’ve written a few blogs on my myspace page. This is one from last Sunday, when I got baptized…along with 163 other people at my church. I thought I’d re-post it here, both to share what God is doing, and because I’m still in awe over the whole experience:
There aren’t words for what happened in church this morning. I’m going to try anyway, and fail miserably, because I still can’t get my head around what happened. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get my head around it…
Three of us had planned on being baptized this morning. Just three. I had my pep talk with Susan in the bathroom before service started, and she reminded me to breathe and that I needed to stop buying into the line that kept running through my head, the one that kept telling me that I had absolutely no right to be baptized and that I’d never be good enough. Baptism is meant to be a public statement that you’re not good enough on your own, and that you love Christ and are relying solely on him to finally make you good enough. And so the line running through my head really was just an awful lie, albeit one that I’ve believed for as long as I can remember…
Paul preached his last sermon at Northgate. He was very good and I realized again how much I will miss him when he leaves. He spoke on being a friend to others, and said that the greatest gift you can give to someone is to connect them to Christ, which I fully believe. Anthony sang a song, and then Paul invited people up to be baptized.
The invitation was extended to the entire church. Ten, maybe twelve, people came up at first. Lauren came up with me, and I didn’t know if I was crying for her or for me as we stood up at the front of the sanctuary with the rest of the small group. We were all baptized, and the congregation clapped and cheered. The worship team started singing, and then more people started coming forward…
I don’t know how long we sang. A half hour, maybe. People just kept coming forward, and Paul kept baptizing them. It was incredible. I swear, there were people who must have just come to Northgate for the first time this morning coming up to be baptized. My mother was baptized. My mother. I didn’t know I could be that happy and cry so much at the same time.
I stood amongst the congregation, Susan on one side of me and my sisters on the other. I stood, and I sand and I cried and couldn’t name what I was feeling. I didn’t want to leave the moment. I didn’t want it to stop.
My sisters were there. I am so incredibly grateful that my sisters were there. And my mother and Jack. That they got to witness that. That they got to see this amazing outpouring of love and support. They got to witness the hugging and the crying and the running around. I hope they saw it… I hope they saw it and I hope they understood it. And I hope even more that they want it for themselves. I hope they realize what today meant; today was it. Today was what it means to be part of the Body of Christ. Today was what it means to be part of something that’s bigger than yourself. Oh, I hope they saw that…
What a difference from this morning… I was feeling so frightened to do this, worrying and wanting it to be absolutely perfect. Worrying that my family was going to be absolutely miserable and didn’t really want to be there. Worrying that I wasn’t good enough to be baptized in the first place… Oh my goodness.
After it was all over, and the music had finally stopped and we were all standing around, amazed, I think, and not really certain we’d just witnessed what had just happened, the man sitting behind me started talking with me. He told me that when he was baptized, he and his wife had gone to Israel and been baptized together in the Jordan river. And after he said this, I told him that that must have been an amazing experience. I was thinking, however, that I would not trade this Sunday and this experience for anything else in the world…
God could not have been more amazing today.
And I cannot wait to see what he does this Sunday…
[...] Melissa [...]