Take me to the river

Both of my children were baptized when they were ten.

Jayna wore the same blue ribbon of "truth" that I wore when I was baptized at Fairwood in 1974. I found the ribbon, still on its original pin, pressed between the pages of my scrapbook in the attic. I had tears in my eyes as I fixed it to her little collar. The words felt like paste in my mouth as I explained "the truth" to her. I knew I wasn't qualified. And, I stood convicted as she went into the water with her father to complete the Christian tradition of my youth.

I didn't take communion with her that day. Or any day since. My heart was too far from God at the time, and when my heart found its way back home, it was she who would not partake.

Jared asked hard questions before he was baptized. "How do we know that our God is the only God?" and "What if we had never been created?" These were questions I asked myself before I fell asleep at night when I was younger than he was, but I would have never dared ask them aloud. They were questions that struck fear in my heart, and I wasn't sure I wanted to consider the answers.

It was a nearly a year after he went into the baptismal waters that I took communion with Jared. My soul ached as I stood in the circle to receive the bread and wine. And, there was a bitter sweetness in offering my son the elements of the ages knowing the questions in his heart.

I do not know that I have done a good job in the spiritual training of my children. For so long it hurt too much. I wonder now if it is too late. I pray for them. I love them. And, in the end that might be the best that I can do.