Before and After, Then and Now

I was running late. As I slipped into the back of the church, I saw her on stage. Like the rest who were all lined up in a row across, she was wearing a loose white robe. She looked a bit forlorn as if not quite sure what was going on. Then our eyes met, she saw me and smiled a tentative smile of recognition and relief. I waved back at her like crazy, my heart was practically bursting with joy, seeing her take this public step of faith; I now fully understand why the Bible tells us that the angels rejoice in heaven over even 1 saved soul.  She gestured at the front-most rows, and I caught sight of her daughter seated there together with my cell-mate, the man who had been instrumental in connecting this recently-bereaved widow with me. Like me, she had lost her husband to cancer. Like me, out of that crisis, both she and her husband came to Jesus and found peace and meaning in the face of death.  As one by one the line inched forward towards the baptismal pool, I moved forward to say hi to them. Finally it was her turn. We all approached the pool and as I watched Pastor dip her into the water, my mind flew back to my own baptism 11 years ago....

Like her, then I was a very new 'baby in Christ'; having just 'accepted' Jesus into my heart. To me all those strange-sounding terms simply meant I had become a 'Christian'. As far as I was concerned, all this baptism tingy was just something I was supposed to do as a 'Christian', so I did it. That nite my brother arranged a dinner for the entire family and some church people. But I couldn't understand much why or what the big deal was all about. It was only later as I got down to studying the Bible in depth that  the full significance of what baptism meant hit me.

Nobody talked me 'into' Jesus Christ. I wasn't 'cornered' into becoming a Christian. I spent 11 of my growing-up years in a Convent school, run by 'real' missionary nuns, who walked around in flowy habits and head veils. I dutifully joined in uttering Hail Mary, full of grace during our morning assemblies even tho I had absolutely no idea who Mary was back then. I remember most vividly the chapel in my secondary school; sometimes I would follow my Catholic classmate there and religiously bend my knee, dip my finger in holy water and cross myself as I stepped into the cool serenity of the place. I loved the atmosphere; there was something most 'holy' that demanded reverence even from one as ignorant as I was about Christianity. I went there not to pray (I didn't know how or who to pray to!) - I just liked 'soaking' in the silence, sitting on the pews.  Later on, as a curious teenager, I 'dabbled' in religion, reading the Bible and bits of other Holy Scriptures. Of coz being the fiercely independent thinker I was , I decided then all gods were the same anyway. Besides by that time, caught in the throes of a career making money, and living out a marriage making babies, I had no need for or of god, by whatever name....

Until the day Jesus called me, very distinctly I 'heard' His name in my mind, as I was standing in front of our (Chinese) family altar, overwhelmed by tears as I struggled with the fact that my husband had cancer. The rest as they say is history. 2 years and several buckets of tears down the line, I found myself dressed in a loose white robe and being dunked in water. Did I feel anything? Ya, wet, for sure. Honestly, no; I didn't hear voices or see angels, I didn't get all tingly, I didn't float on air, nor did I faint.... so much for what is supposedly the  most significant act of a Christian. But that was then, before I was blind. Now, years after, I see....

Amazing grace that set me free, amazing love that never fails, from a God like no other, without compare; I can say I am truly a new creation in Christ Jesus. Not becoz I have read the whole Bible umpteen times, not becoz I pray, not becoz I do charitable deeds , not becoz I give money to God or go to church regularly, not becoz I have changed inside, nor even becoz  my heart knows this God is different. But simply becoz of what Jesus has done 2012 years ago, when He gave up His life on the cross in exchange for mine, and rose again as living proof of all that He claims to be. It reminds me of the Aladdin fable,  where the old lamp is traded in for new, and he gets 3 wishes from a genie. But way better by far is the truth of a God who so loved the world that He gave...Jesus Christ, so that whoever believes gets the highest blessing of eternal life in heaven and abundant life on earth, which is infinitely more precious than anything any man could ever wish for, even in his wildest dreams.

Before when I 'became' a Christian then, I thought I had changed religion. Now, after 11 years, I find God, and He isn't a religion. And that is a big deal.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come"... 
2 Corinthians 5:17