"...Well done good and faithful servant!" Matthew 25:23
Watching baptisms is like watching a high school graduation. You know this person has been through a journey to get them to this one point where they have decided to not just get wet, but to follow Jesus. Recently, I was watching baptisms at church. I always shed tears during baptisms because they remind me of my own baptism and it makes me think of the adventure that these individuals are about to embark on.
"Though none go with me, still I will follow. Though none go with me, still I will follow. Though none go with me, still I will follow, no turning back, no turning back."
This is a song I remember singing in the children's choir I was in at my Catholic Church. I attended 12 years of Catholic school and spent the majority of my life around Catholic missionary priests. My parents devoted most of their lives to supporting those on the mission fields. This looked like me riding my tricycle around the rose garden of the mansion where my parents would attend regular meetings for the Verona Missionary League. The priests would lift me on their shoulders and give me loving hugs and kisses. I grew up knowing I was loved.
When I left the Catholic church as a young pregnant teenager, I was scorned by a bad experience when I shared my sin in confession. I walked away feeling more shame and less hope for redemption. Looking back though, I never left God. He was always there. I also realized that my bad experience in confession was the best thing that ever happened to me because it inspired me to search for Jesus. The Catholic church was not bad, but the truth and relationship I needed to find were not going to be found in my 12 years of Catholic school. My journey of searching for truth around my salvation was only just beginning at that point. I walked away from the Catholic church knowing I was missing some major pieces of the puzzle. This is when I began talking to everyone...Mormons, Jehovah Witness...I was searching for those pieces. After many failed attempts to find truth like an Easter Egg hunt I showed up late to, I finally resigned to the contentment of raising our baby with my boyfriend just trying to survive.
However, eventually, our lives would intersect with my husband's coworker who would later invite us to attend the church with his family 20 miles away from our home. It was there that my eyes began to be opened to the truth I had been seeking so many years before.
Everyone's journey is unique and recently, the Sunday before Christmas, I happened to get front row seats to one young woman's decision to follow Jesus. She was the mother of a girl who attended my daughter's school a few years before. Something within me knew her journey to get where she was that morning was not an easy one. I guess that was what made it so beautiful. I knew God was pursuing her just as He had pursued me.
