On Sunday, the boys were baptized.
I always feel like other people’s baptisms are such holy ground. When we baptize a baby, we all stand with the family. We promise to help them raise that child in the faith. We pray.
And I cry.
But somehow I’ve never felt that sense of the sacred at my own children’s baptisms. I’ve never cried.
I confess I feel a little cheated.
After church on Sunday, our children’s minister assured me that the boys’ baptism was precious and beautiful, that Luke and Ben were darling, that Jack and Jane were wholly focused and engaged as they stood next to the baptismal font with us.
I’m glad to know that because I felt disconnected, distracted. I tried to focus on the words of Isaiah that Doug and I read, our hopes and prayer for our boys as they grow into men.
I tried to focus on the words that our pastor spoke, on the water as she baptized first Ben and then Luke, on the looks on the boys’ faces as the water touched their foreheads and trailed down their temples.
I tried to be present to the holiness of the moment.
But I wasn’t present to the sacred. I was distracted by my juggling of the logistics of two babies, two older kids, two sets of grandparents, two godparents, and a Bible.
Pass the mic. Pass the Bible. Pass a baby.
In all the passing, I missed the present. The wonder. The gift of standing on holy ground, surrounded by people I love.
Already, I don’t remember what our pastor said. Already I don’t remember how the boys looked. Already I don’t remember how it felt to stand in the midst of my community and be prayed for.
That is completely lame.
It is also completely okay. It really is. God saw. And God remembers. He holds those moments always, forever, and one day I will get to see my boys’ baptism without the distraction of who is supposed to do what when.
I will get to see it as it truly was: God-infused, wonder-filled, joy-charged.
