A Blessing for Kelson

On April 26^th I got to see my son for the first time after his helicopter ride to Urbana. I was excited to see him and Trever since I’d been away for both of them for about 24 hours, recovering from the C-Section. Shortly after I saw Kelson, Trever and I went back to our room to decompress and talk for the first time face to face, without an audience, since our world had been turned upside down the day before. At this point he told me he wanted to have Kelson baptized.

I was thoroughly against it. I was not giving up on my son. I felt that if we have him baptized we were giving God permission to take him to heaven and I wasn’t about to quit fighting for him. Up until this point everyone had told me it was ok to be scared and tried to make me feel like things were not going to be ok. I was calm and never doubted God’s intentions for Kelson. I knew he would be fine. The only time I really questioned if Kelson would be fine was the instant that Trever mentioned baptism to me. However, that is when I learned the real meaning of being baptized.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget his baptism. I remember sitting there in my wheelchair and watching Pastor Liz get a travel size bottle of baptismal water out of her purse. Not your typical baptism. I remember the NICU staff letting everyone that was there visiting at the time come back to his isolette even though only 4 of us were allowed back there at a time. I remember everyone sobbing, and feeling the real reason we were doing this was because he wasn’t going to survive to have a church baptism. And as Pastor Liz did the baptism, I remember feeling a huge sense of relief wash over me. She prayed for him, but she also prayed with me. At that point, there was not a doubt in my mind that Kelson had God on his side.

Before Claire was baptized, we took a little “class” with Pastor Liz. I remember having several conversations about people having a baby baptized and then never seeing the child in church again. We discussed the importance of not only the family raising the child in a Christian lifestyle but the idea that the congregation was making a commitment to support the child in his/her Christian life. Because Kelson did not have the commitment of his church family on April 26^th we knew we wanted to have a “church baptism”. And last Sunday was the day.

Our church does not believe in being baptized twice so we couldn’t really “Re-baptize” him. We are also in the process of finding a new church home in our new community and felt like asking the congregation at our old church to make a commitment to Kelson was being kind of hypocritical. But Pastor Liz had the right idea. She did a very nice, very simple, blessing for Kelson and for our family as we start the next leg of our journey. She anointed Kelson. She said just the right things. And we were able to share our little miracle with some of the most instrumental people on our team. Both the Piper City United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church have supported us spiritually and financially, helped us move, fed our friends, and stalked our blog for almost 6 months now. And for that, we are beyond thankful.

Yesterday was, in a way, just a symbolic gesture. But, it was also a glimpse back at how far we have come in the last few months and a stepping stone in to the next leg of our journey as a family. We are grateful for the church family that we’re leaving behind in Piper City and we are excited to find our perfect fit in our new church family in LeRoy.