baptism

I have been drowning since watching someone else go under water. 

The other person is fine; it was intentional. It was a baptism.

Technically I'm fine too. I'm drowning in memories and emotions, not water. 

The preacher talked about finding home in community and finding life in Jesus. We sang "How Deep The Father’s Love For Us."

The peacefulness of the event was pulling me under as quickly as was the absence of fire, brimstone, and hell. 

Was this what baptism was supposed to be?

People were hoping the sun would come out just for a moment, as the North Sea was cold and those getting baptized would appreciate the warmth.

I was hoping that the water from the sky hid the water from my eyes. 

Or maybe others would assume my tears were of joy, because I knew one of the people being baptized. 

I went about the rest of the day, telling myself that I wasn't that bothered. But night came, and the pressure I felt suggested it was the darkness of the ocean floor rather than the darkness of night. 

I tried to breathe and could not.

I gave up after an hour or so. I found my night-owl best friend, who was still wide awake, and we cried. Cried as I told her the story of my baptism. I cried until all the water that filled my lungs was gone.

We also laughed a lot. Because this story is as turbulent as the ocean. Yes, you are allowed to laugh too.

******

Background knowledge that is essential to understanding this story:

• Religion: My parents did not convert to Christianity until a year or two after I was born. Their parents were not practicing Christians, if Christians at all, so they had no context for how Sunday religion was supposed to look like on the weekdays at home. 
• Church: Our church was a small Southern Baptist church. I learned two things. The first thing was hell, fire, brimstone, and eternity in despair. The second was the verse John 3:16 in KJV.
• Resources: We grew up poor. We always had a roof over our head, even if it leaked. And we always had food, even if it was the same meal every night for a week. Thinking of Maslow's hierarchy, we did not spend a lot of time on social-emotional learning, as all resources went into meeting the basic needs for survival. My grandparents raised their children in similar environments. There was little room for emotions and feelings. 
• Health: We were not in a position to have preventative medicine practices, but we always went to the doctor if something was wrong. Always.
• Personality: I have always been quiet. I keep to myself and worry about inconveniencing others. I have always been more likely to struggle along and figure it out myself, rather than ask for help. I do not know how much is nature versus nurture. How much can be contributing to not having parents that fostered social-emotional learning and how much is just who I am.
• The Crux of the Matter: I have (had?) Precordial Catch Syndrome (self-diagnosed, because, of all ironies, I still haven't told a doctor about this). Precordial Catch Syndrome is when, especially as a child, you feel a VERY sharp pain on the left side of your chest, seemingly your heart. According to the internet, it is harmless and most people grow out of it in their twenties. 
• Lastly: My parents will be mortified, concerned, depressed, guilty, etcetera if they ever hear this story.

Figured out where this is headed yet?

Imma tell you anyway.

(In the voice of Ma from Golden Girls) 

Picture it: 1997 Small Town in rural America. 

There I am, five years old, feeling like someone stuck a knife between my ribs and jerked it out just as fast. The pain would disappear as soon as I took a breath, which, depending on how big the knife felt, could take me a second to remember to do. My tiny person brain could rationalize only one explanation: I was dying (it seemed logical at the time). Did I tell someone? ...no...I accepted my fate to die young. I was reminded of the fragility of life every month or so. As I grew in size, so grew my concern for the gravity of the situation.

Fast forward a couple of years and my grandfather dies of a heart attack. I didn't know what a heart attack was, but I knew where my heart was and I knew my pains felt like being attacked. So that settled the matter. I was dying of chronic cardiac arrest at the mere age of seven. Apparently such things were related to diet and the Cheerios box said it was good for my heart health, so I ate those for a while. I also saw a commercial that Bayer medicine would help, but I never saw any in the house. Having enough concern to consider self-medication, one would think I would summon the courage to tell someone about my congestive heart failure. But no. I told no one. 

Just let the record show that if I would have told someone, MY PARENTS WOULD HAVE TAKEN ME TO THE DOCTOR. No doubt. But who could be that much of a bother? Not me or my heart. I would literally rather die than be an inconvenience. Not 'literally' in the figurative sense, or the funny sense...in the literal since. I truly believed I was dying but could not bring myself to bother anyone. I don't know why. In ways, I am still like that today. I still don't know why.

A couple years later, I am eight or nine years old. I had a rough week of myocardial infarctions. If you watched Sanford and Sons, I was "having a big one."

I began to wonder what death would mean for me. We never talked about death in our house, but we talked about it in church. That's when it hit me. When my heart would inevitably quit working (which could be any moment), my eight year old soul was definitely going to hell for all of eternity.

From what I learned in church, I could prevent that by believing in Jesus. So as I laid in bed, wondering if I would wake up, I said, "Dear Jesus, I believe you are real." And then I waited. Nothing felt different. I supposed one didn't necessarily, physically feel salvation. But then I remembered that my church did baptisms for those that 'got saved' so I got out of bed, found my father, and declared that I needed to get baptized at church. I turned around and headed back to bed. 

My father stopped me and tried to talk to me about my decision to be baptized. Did I get saved? Did I love Jesus? And then he asked another question which, little did he intend, would haunt me for years: "Did you say the prayer?"

Now he may have said "a" prayer, but my brain heard "THE" prayer. Like "The Prayer" with capital letters as if there was a very specific one. 

Any child who will not burden other people with their impending death will also not burden them with unnecessary questions. Questions like: What prayer?!?!?

I had prayed to Jesus, telling Him I thought He was real, so I told my father that I prayed already and then went back to bed. 

Not to sleep though. I prayed. Prayed that if there was a The Prayer that God would provide it, because I sure didn't know what it was. 

Next Sunday service I looked through the hymn book for prayers. Being Southern Baptists, liturgy was condemned (as it restricted the movement of the Holy Sprit, duh) and there was not a written prayer to be found. I knew that hypothetically there were prayers in the Bible, but I wasn't sure where or which one was The Prayer. I decided it wasn't the Lord's Prayer even though name indicated it might be...I prayed it anyway just to be sure. And every other prayer I heard. I would just say what the preacher was saying, hoping it was The One. Baptism day rolled around and we said a group prayer. Maybe that was The Prayer, so I prayed it as seriously as I could (yes, it was an affirmation of faith prayer, but I didn't know that is what I was looking for). 

This desperate search for The Prayer continued for many, many years. I kept wondering if I somehow missed a step. Afraid that between my frail heart and a lack reciting a very specific prayer that I was still going to land in hell. And considering the severity of tachycardia, I felt a lot of pressure to get this right. Not enough pressure to ask someone though. I don't think there was enough pressure in the world for me to do that.

One day, my best friend asked me to tell her my biggest secret (as middle school girls do). Yes, this is the same friend who cried with me late at night as all this spilled out. I told her that 'when I was little' I would get chest pains. She was very concerned with this confession (perhaps she thought I would tell her a time I stole a cookie - boy was she in for a surprise). She said we could tell her mom. That we could tell her mom anything. And besides, her mom was a doctor, so she might be able to help. But I did not want any one else to know about my congestive heart failure, so I assured my friend that it was not a big deal, that it had stopped, and that if it ever happened again, we would tell her mom. What good was telling someone if it was over? But it wasn't over. And I didn't tell her or her mom when it happened again.

I told myself the pains were over. As I got older, the intervals between stabbings became longer and less scary, and each time I would tell myself that it was not going to happen again. It always does though.

I continued to search for a magical prayer until my early teen years, when I finally realized that there was not a singular prayer of affirmation. Though my original prayer of "Jesus, I believe you are real" was perhaps wanting in some areas...

The pains never really stopped. But, later in life, I found Google and a name for my ailment (Precordial Catch Syndrome) and the time intervals continued to increase between bouts of pain. 

It's been so long since my last 'episode,' that they have probably stopped by now. So I tell myself. As I always have.

******

Fast forward to the baptism I recently attended. No talk of hell. No talk about how we get saved to avoid the scary. Just love. And hope. And devotion. No one seemed to be getting saved in response to their expected expiration. Memories of my own baptism poured over me. 

The rain drizzled as sins were washed away. Emotions flooded my soul and threatened to wash me away.

And I released a tiny, muddled, tear-filled chuckle when the congregation recited a prayer printed in the handout.

"I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate. He was crucified, died and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting."