I lifted Adalyn out of the baptismal waters, barely leaving a trace of a ripple as I steadied her. The six-year-old seemed light as a feather in my arms.
It had been four months, almost to the Sunday, since I had preached in the church where I had pastored for twenty years. As usual, I had awakened long before dawn. Walking outside, peering into the heavens, I wondered what it would be like back in the pulpit. How would I respond to people since I was a guest but certainly not a visitor? Would they whisper, “The old guy has come back? What’s he trying to do?”
Since I was the only pastor little Adalyn had known, her parents, Alex and Abby, had asked me if I would be willing to talk with her about committing her life to Christ. She had been asking them about making what my church tradition calls a “profession of faith.” So, her dad brought her to our house, and on the floor, Adalyn and I discussed what it means to follow Jesus. She gently took my hand and voiced her simple but profound prayer of faith.
Though Adalyn was only six, she had always been a precocious child. Her grandmother reminded me of something Adalyn had written a few years back. It was during the Christmas season. Adalyn’s letter to Santa that year told him that her Mawmaw needed yarn, her Pawpaw needed wood, and Dr. David needed people to listen. I quipped, “From the mouths of babes,” when Adalyn’s Mawmaw first told me that story.
And on Adalyn’s baptismal day, the people were listening. I sensed the love of God’s people as my words flowed naturally during my sermon, just as if I hadn’t been away. And afterward, my heart overflowed with joy as Lori and I hugged and reconnected with our church family.
Adalyn had made public a much deeper commitment to someone who was more than a Christmas season wish-giver. She was saying Christ was her Savior and Lord. And coming out of the water in the baptistry, hair dripping, wiping her eyes, she looked out on a church family that had claimed her years before she claimed them. Adalyn’s broad smile matched her shining eyes.
Then like a tiny minnow, Adalyn literally swam out of the baptistry. And watching her paddle in the water toward the ladies waiting for her with open arms and towels, I smiled because I saw in Adalyn my oldest daughter, Mary, who, like Adalyn, was a young and wee one when I baptized her almost thirty years ago. “Mary, you were so small, you swam out of the baptistry,” I remind her occasionally, always with a grin for that precious memory I savor.
Glancing at the ladies who embraced Adalyn in the baptistry, I prayed God’s grace for her next thirty years of life, when she will have grown into a young lady and, by then, will have faced trials, tribulations, and disappointments, along with great joys and thrilling victories. Maybe she will be listening to the preacher just as she had asked people to do on what will be a Christmas of the long-ago past by then. Or perhaps she will teach the Word herself, praying for the people to listen as she preaches. “Who knows?” I wondered.
But for now, I watched her glide out of the baptistry water, searching for the steps.
And with one last swift kick of her feet to shake off the water, she stood on solid ground.
Where the world was waiting for her.