Sunday Sermon

This may come as a shock to some of you, but I'm a crier. Okay, so it's not so much of a shock, but since the birthing of my gremlins it's gotten worse. If an episode is staged right, an entire viewing of Grey's Anatomy will leave streaks across my face. Yesterday my husband flipped the channel to Secretariat...I watched thirty seconds, (after already seeing it in the past) and I couldn't hold the tears at bay. I had to leave the room so I wouldn't have to suffer the eye rollage from the Mister.

I even tear up at church during the middle of a song. It doesn't happen every Sunday, but when it does I just pretend no one can see me. Today, I'd made it through the awesome worship service led by our church band with no shedding of tears. I'd made it through the teachings of our pastor, who spoke beautifully about the health of our church in 2011 and about the upcoming future. He then wrapped up the service by telling us about all the baptisms we had in 2011. We had one hundred. ONE HUNDRED BAPTISMS in the year of 2011. People, THAT is a glorious number.

And I'm just going to run off on a small tangent and say that if you are ever in the Northwest Houston area and want to hang out on a Sunday morning, I'd love to have you sitting next to me. I'll even grab you a cup of coffee.

Okay, back on track. Our baptisms. They record each and every moment and share them to the congregation on Sundays. And guess what? I cry every time. I become so overwhelmed when I see people getting excited for God and I can't control myself.

So, today, when Dave said, "We put together a montage of last years baptisms to share today," a little piece of my heart jumped for joy, and another piece of my heart realized what was going to happen. I was going to be a blubbering mess.

Our worship team strummed their guitars and started singing and I told myself to stay strong. "Don't listen to the song!" I told myself, but I didn't last two dunks. I had to sit there and wipe away the tears for nearly seven minutes. It was beautiful watching each person cross their chest, hold their nose, close their eyes, and let trust fall into the hands of whoever was burying them into death and raising them to a new life.

As much as I adore watching the individual take that plunge I revel on the emotion on their face when they rise from the water. Some let loose a small and meek smile at the camera, others show serious teeth wattage. Some reach to their spouse if present and wrap loving arms around them, others reach to the person who baptized him and my ABSOLUTE favorite is when they come up smiling and it's immediately replaced with crying eyes. The realization of what has transpired etched on the person's face is what brings me down. It's beautiful and I'm so happy to be a member of a church where this moment happens often. That's what church is about, right? Bringing those closer to God?

This sign of health and growth in our church makes me smile and I will say many prayers over this next year for our congregation. I'm just ridiculously happy that this is where we are at and we get to be a part of it all. I hope you all have a blessed Sunday.

Romans 6:3-5

³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
 ⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.