baptism

I was baptized this past weekend. I never expected to say that in my lifetime. Even a year ago, when I sensed I was moving along a more spiritual path and looking back, could see that I was coming up against undeniable needs for this growth, I wouldn't have predicted baptism in my future.
I was raised in the Catholic church. CCD once a week, regular confession, the memorized routine of it. To this I was baptized as an infant. Without question I followed this design because it was what I was born into and what one just did. Many embace this church but it never spoke to me. I did not find God in the Catholic church.

A few years ago I began to see that I was doing everything in my life as if I were a lemming: No thought-just forward motion, one foot in front of the other where ever the person leading me chose. My years, months, weeks, days and hours were managed by the laws of 'supposed to' and 'shoulds' of someone else's design. The choices I was making were solely based on the rightness of them by society, institution and spoken and unspoken familial expectations. I locked myself into such a routine of preset rules and guidelines that I could no longer feel the warm spark of my God given passion and intuition. There was nary a whisper of the voice within that would guide me more surely than any external force along my unique path. The ability to listen, or to hear, was squelched for many reasons-the choice to retune the dials to my own frequency was my own obligation.
While this retune is not to me credited alone, situations and forces stronger than my own will would not let me mute the station any longer; I had to make the choice to hear the song.
So I began to listen. I chose to begin to listen. Huge, life altering changes took place that I couldn't have predicted as I began walking to my own tune. And not just once at the get go did this happen, but several times~each change bringing me closer, deeper and more trustingly in tune to what is for me in this life.
And the latest of these changes was to be pulled to God. No, make that yanked-square in your face-see what is here waiting for you-slammed up side the head-pulled to God. I got baptized. It started with a small creeping in of spirituality. A denial, really, that what I was searching for was God based. I looked to the universe; to yoga and meditation and women's groups. I opened books on all kinds of spiritual paths seeking a connection that would call to my heart. But I wasn't finding it. I needed to break apart just a little bit more for my spirit to let my real need speak and find a resting place.
And so this summer I broke. I didn't know it at the time; didn't completely recognize all that was happening to me as it happened. But I definitely broke. And on the other side of that breaking, God waited. A desperate, connected, faithfilled trusting comfort waited. A tune I'd never been able to hear before was playing. I jumped in. If you ask my sister, I tend to do that-jump in. There is no dipping the toe in to test the water, slowly stepping down into the depth-no I jump. And now, I've jumped into this pond. This healthy, honest, true to myself pond. One that is opening doors, filling in question marks and throwing opportunities into my sites. The water is just right. I'm going to stay and swim here for a lifetime or so. Hang out and come along for the ride!~in love. trish.