I wrote this for my Baptism on April 6th, 2025. I was still engaged at this time, dealing with what I now know as grief and exhausted beyond measure. Mentally fried and physically forfeiting, at the end of myself. As I was handed the microphone, the first thing I said to the entire church was "they don't usually give people who look like me a mic unless it's at a metal concert". I then cracked a joke about doing a canon ball into the baptism pool. Classy Lu. After I regained composure, I started to tell my story and was instantly in waterworks. I forgot to read from my notes and just let the words leave my body, like a confession of a lifetime that just barely pried the door open to my soul.
My first encounter with faith was with my religion teacher Mr. Walsh in high school. He was the school priest. I would always skip the masses, and never attended the gatherings in the chapel that he hosted, even if the whole school was present. We were like two rams in a fight, always butting heads over religion and how people have ruined the faith with turning religion into law and using it against one another. I was adamant that religion was a construct designed to weigh people down with rituals and that every Sunday you could repent, be saved and go back to repeating your sins on the daily only to return back to church on Sunday to be cleansed. I would argue that you don’t need religion if you believe in a higher power, that you don’t need religion if you have radical personal responsibility. I said that you don’t have to believe in God to know something larger than life exists.
He was so patient, this man, and one day, he came in early to catch me trying to skip Christmas mass. He asked me to stay, but not to attend the mass. He told me we had a new student who came from Columbia and that she’s never seen snow before, so he wanted me to put on my snow suit and show her everything there is to know about snow. We built snowmen, snowballs, rolled in it, ate it, I told her all about the yellow stuff and why to avoid it. After mass ended, Mr. Walsh asked me if I believed in God, and then said “don’t answer, just do” . I was so confused, and waiting for the hammer to drop because I just played outside for two hours skipping his mass. This sat with me my whole life and today I finally understand what he meant. I thought “just do” meant believe in God, just believe. What he actually meant was that I show I believe by my own actions, in how I treat others and myself. It’s about action, not memorizing bible lines and rituals.
It took 21 years from this conversation to today for me to try grasp what he was telling me. He saw something in me that I never saw in myself. After high school, my life has been a rollercoaster, I often can relate to lemony snicket and a series of unfortunate events. I near worked myself to death and was caretaking for my mother who was an alcoholic. I thought, if I control everything, cook, clean, show her how hard I’m working and how easy I am making her existence, she could change. She could regain her will to live. I tried everything, we went to rehab 7 times, all failed. I tried living with her temporarily, that failed. What felt like love and empathy and compassion turned into anger and resentment. This fuelled my drive to control everything else in my life from work promotions, athletic achievements, the foods I ate, what I wore, what I knew about the world, my relationships, which all inevitably failed….I needed to keep it together because everyone around me relied on me to keep it together. Someone had a problem? They called me, and I would solve it. What I couldn’t solve was this growing emptiness in my heart. You wouldn’t know it though, I was like a statue in any situation, that's the European way I suppose.
After my mom died, I experienced a new emotion inside called grief. Grief turned into guilt and began to eat away my mind. I completely lost who I was, and the joy to live, I didn’t want to be here anymore but I knew that people relied on me, like my sister and brother and my father would have been devastated if I did something stupid. My relationships crumbled around me because I was never available, always busy, always working, always doing, doing something. I kept this up to avoid the guilt of “what if I could have done more”. Could I have helped changed her path?
My story is a long one, this is just one slice of the pie of my life. On November 8th I hit my rock bottom, I felt like I was living in hell, in pure chaos. Unappreciated by my partner whom I thought I loved, and experiencing loss all over again for the hundredth time, burying another loved one. I could only think of one person who was always shining like a lightbulb, it was Brittney McLelland. She was my hairdresser and friend. Slowly over the years prior, I saw a change in her and we got to talking about church and her new faith. I reached out and asked her about what time her and Scott attend church. She replied with the church details and I made my first ever visit into a church on November 24th, 2024. I can’t tell you how much I was sweating, more than I am right now. I panicked, and as soon as the singing started I just cried, cried the entire time until the very end, and even through Pastor Mike’s sermon. What I heard was exactly what I needed to hear. I wanted to run out of there but I told myself that I am not a quitter, that I have tried everything to heal and this was the only thing left. There was only one way and it was to God, and through God and with God.
I’ll spare you the details of my experience but what I will tell you, is on that day, November 24th, everything in my life changed. I knew I had faith, I just never knew what to call it. I knew that my experiences and pain were forging me for something much bigger, I knew that nothing else could help me feel loved and ease my guilt and grief but God. The warmth and love I felt on that day continues every time I attend Grace and every time I interact with the many people here. This is a beautiful place, and I continue to keep an open heart and mind to the experiences. I never imagined this is what a church community was, never in my wildest dreams. I never imagined a relationship was Christianity.
I feel like I am coming home for the hug that I always needed and for the community that I always wished for. I feel like everything in the last 5 months has fallen into place, I have clearer thoughts, I created boundaries for myself, I am a kinder version, its like a veil to the world has been lifted and the answers I was searching for were always there. I started reading the bible and though I started with Revelation, (yes I went there first), I quickly latched onto Luke, Acts, John, Corinthians and Philippians. I am just starting this journey, and I know I have a lot to learn. My best friend once said “ give it all to God” and today, I am ready for that.
I have linked the baptism video here, mine starts at around 29:30 ish. It was edited slightly but you can get a sense for some of my story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnQH4L18n8w
I encourage you to watch all of the baptisms this day. Pretty powerful stuff.
Photo: My twin sister and her sons came to my baptism. It was a happy surprise for me this day as I was coming alone.
0 comments