Ophelia loves Jesus
The picture above and the text below are taken from Ophelia's blog (which you can only get to if you are approved, for approval e-mail me). I love her words here as she describes her experience. I should warn you that we don't do any kind of spelling or grammer check when she writes on her blog. Enjoy!
This was at the church, it was fun. I did the Baptise with my dad. My dad put me in the water, It was kind of scarde and fun. You know why i got Baptise, Because i love Jesus so much, And he loves me too.I know it looks like a swimingpoul, But it is a tub.I was a little bit scarde, But i was okay. When I did the baptise, my mommy gave me a necklace. It was from mommy and daddy. It is a gold cross with a rose and I love them very much. I'm glad I got baptised. -Ophelia
posted by Jessica @ 12:50 PM
2 Comments:
what a wonderful blessing, thank you for sharing!
I had to delete my own comment because I made it post twice somehow. Anyway... I copied it before I deleted it so here it is again:
TX,
Glad to see you, sorry I haven't been around much but I am still reading the book. I like the format, works well for the way my life is right now.
As for your comment, I thought you may something along those lines when I made the post and I'm really glad you did, no insult taken. In truth, no, I don't think Ophelia can really understand all that Christianity means (shoot, I'm not sure I do, I'm willing to wrestle with that over and over and over again) but I'm ok with that. Right now, for her 7 year old mind she loves Jesus and that is enough for her. She wants to say that she identifies her self with Christ because as much as possible, it is what she believes. Her choice to be baptized wasn't something we treated lightly and Jeremy and I did consider telling her no (actually, we did several times when she asked a year ago) but because we have to admit that we believe there is an element of mystery in our faith, even for us, we could not refuse to allow her to take the step of baptism if that was truly her desire. Her faith journey is not something I can control or put on my time table. True, as Christian parents we seek to guide our children's faith along the way but whatever faith decision Ophelia makes we want to be her own, not ours. I am not comfortable telling Ophelia that there is an age that she'll hit some day when she can begin making decisions about her faith, we want to teach her that it can be a process, a long one and she can question every thing as many times as she needs to in order to be satisfied and we will support her regardless of her decision. I would be grieved if 10, 15, 20 years from now (or tomorrow for that matter, 7 year olds can be fickle, even with God- for the grandparents reading this: we really took time to be sure she understood as much as possible, it wasn't a whim) Ophelia comes to a point that she rejects the concept of God entirely but still I will support her, love her and share in her life. My job is not to make my daughter just like me but to encourage her to be who she is and I love her for who she is regardless.
We believe baptism to be a very powerful and beautiful step in one's Christian walk, I wonder if letting her take that step at such a young age is irresponsible, I don't really know. However, we have talked with Ophelia about different beliefs (she compares notes with our Muslim neighbors 6 year old- even called her to share the baptism video on Sunday and then they launched into a discussion about the Prophet Muhammad’s Birthday) including non-belief though admittedly, our emphasis is usually on what we believe. But we do try to provide balance and we by no means live in a Christian bubble or prevent our children from having relationships with non-Christians. In the long run, Ophelia's decision to be baptized was something we challenged and questioned but supported and allowed her to make as we will any faith decision she makes. When is a person ready to stand in front of others and say what they believe? In an environment that is loving and accepting without pressure in any direction (a constant system of checks and balances- in our case she had actually never seen a baptism so we knew it wasn't some kind of romantic idea for her though now it is for her little sister who wants to be baptized now too... she's getting a firm "no, not right now") and where a person could in fact express doubt later even after a decision is made then I think it is whenever that person can express why they want to do so, takes some time to challenge that, and then can still express a desire to follow through with it. Even when Ophelia got nervous at the sight of the ugly tub set-up street side in the courtyard with lots of people standing around watching and I offered for her to not go through with it she still said she wanted to because she still loved Jesus. Interestingly enough, when I offered to pray with her to help her calm down she told me no, she would be fine and started using a breathing technique we taught our girls to calm them down when they got really upset. And she was right, she's going to be just fine.
So, it's my turn to listen, what do you think? Are we totally crazy parents? I know we are to some extent in your eyes for being Christians, but letting that one slide for now, what are your thoughts on us allowing Ophelia to make this decision?
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