to my son, on the eve of his baptism

Dear sweet boy,

Tomorrow you’ll become a Christian.

Your wriggling arms and legs will be plunged into a warm pool of water, and your lovely dark head will be slathered with oil. A candle will be lit, and a white gown will be worn. Your family and friends will gather to celebrate, and your life will be forever marked by the promises we will witness together.

Tomorrow is a most important day.

And so tonight my head is filled with thoughts of what tomorrow means.

A baptism is no small thing, no light decision. It is initiation into the life of Christ, which means a life spent in service and love for all, especially the poorest among us. It is a vow to conform yourself to the shape of the cross, which means a share in the suffering that was Christ’s, over and over again. It is an outpouring of the Spirit, which means a call to give back to the world the gifts you have been given, for the glory of God.

My prayer for you tonight is this: do not take your baptism for granted. And do not be a casual Christian. Spend some good chunk of your time and your life trying to figure out who God is and who you are and why it all matters.

Because the questions and the challenges of the life of faith matter more than anything in this world. They are the deepest part of our identity, made as we are for relationship with God. Tomorrow we will celebrate this simple but amazing fact: each of us is created by God, claimed by Christ, and called by the Spirit.

Your own call will emerge gradually, over time, but your story begins in a new way tomorrow. Baptism is new birth and a promise of life that reaches even beyond death.

My dear, sweet boy, faith is a gift I cannot give you. Tomorrow your father and I will pledge our hope and our love and our promise to raise you as best we can in a life of faith.

But we cannot hand it to you as simply as we might wish. We can only plant a few seeds, step back and pray for rain and good sun.

Faith is the fruit of questions and confusion, of heartache and wondering, of hope and love. It will surely ebb and flow, rise and fall, prosper and wither throughout the seasons in your life as it has for me and for all those who struggle to call themselves followers of Christ.

What your faith will be and where it will lead you is a mystery now. I can only pray that you will keep yourself open to that mystery as it unfolds.

Before you were my child, you were God’s. And tomorrow we will seal that truth with sacramental sign. A church waits to welcome you, a community to claim you as their own. In this broken world in which we live, there are few things more beautiful than that.

Though the sight of you, all six sweet weeks of you, sleeping quietly next to me, is one of them. May your heart always hold some memory of the peace you know tonight, the joy we will know tomorrow, and the love we will have for you always.

In peace, joy and love –

Your mama

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2 Comments

  1. Kaitlyn Mason on 7 September 2016 at 12:41 pm

    This is so beautiful, Laura. This is exactly the kind of letter we would like to include in our Love Letters for Life project at marygardenshowers.org, should you ever be interested in sharing. God bless you and your family. 🙂

  2. Carrie on 9 October 2011 at 9:24 pm

    Beautiful… really lovely. Thank you!

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