Re-baptized

I say “re-baptized” because like many people I was baptized when I was a young person-- at age fourteen, to be exact. I was sincere enough when I was baptized by full immersion at First Baptist Church in Pella, Iowa in 1968, just a few days after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. It was not a game, or a rite of passage just to go through. I did not do it because my other friends were doing it. I knew what it was about, and I took it reasonably serious, which is to say, not serious enough.

In the decades after, however, I drifted from the Lord, falling into a loose deism filled with many doubts. I believed there was a God, but he was a distant God, and Jesus was just a good man made into a legend by his over-zealous disciples. I did not return to Christ until 2006, at age 52, two years before Kelsey was killed. However, even then I was more of an intellectual Christian. I believed Jesus was, indeed, the Christ, but I still did not fully understand that He wanted a personal relationship, not a part-time associate.

Then Kelsey was killed, and I had to decide whether I still trusted God. He had let Kelsey be crushed by a dump truck. To be honest, at first I did not know whether I trusted the Lord. How did the taking of Kelsey, who was such a wonderful witness for Christ, fit into His plan? What could be the purpose of that?

I spoke at length with Steve McMeans, the pastor of Indiana Avenue Baptist Church, where Kelsey had attended. While he answered many questions, I still did not know whether I could trust God again.

One of Kelsey’s favorite verses was Proverbs 3:5. About a month before she was killed, she stenciled on her bedroom wall in beautiful letters the opening phrase of that verse: Trust in the Lord with all your heart…” However, in the weeks after her death, it was the rest of that verse that came to capture to me: “…and do not lean on your own understanding.”

That phrase rolled over in mind time and time again. And as I reflected upon it, I decided that while I still had not resolved all my doubts about whether I could trust God again, I did decide that I would seek the answer, and part of that process would be to re-affirm my commitment: I would be re-baptized.

I spoke with Reverend McMeans about this, as well as expressing my many doubts, and he suggested that in light of my doubts, “maybe we should not call it re-baptism, but just baptism.” I chuckled, but saw his point.

So for me, my baptism in November, 2008, represented that I would not give up. That I would seek out God’s wisdom and love; that I would open my mind and my heart to His invasion.

And invade He did.