thetadpoles.com

I started this LAST YEAR but we know how lax I have become with posting. I am spending today finishing posts, updating pics etc. Enjoy going back in time.

December 13, 2009

This morning we had the twins baptized at El Montecito Presbyterian, a church we have recently begun to attend. The baptism was at the beginning of Sunday services then there was the sermon. Today’s sermon was so fitting for the day, for our life, for me. Growing up my side of the family was Jehovah’s Witnesses. I felt the upbringing while strict made a good impact on my life. As I got older I realized it was no longer for me though I don’t regret the years I spent in the Kingdom Hall. I never thought of going to another church. I thought it would be too strange, too foreign, a huge step I wasn’t ready to make. When the twins were born we were told of all of the prayer chains they were on; in Africa, Europe, Alaska and throughout the nation. At the time I was too scared to ask God for large things for the babies. I would just ask that we would get though the day. For Derby to come out of surgery okay, for Loen’s CO2 levels to come down, to successfully wean off the ventilator. When we were finally discharged people would tell us what miracles from God they were to have survived against such odds. The little signs we got from the crane or Matthew’s Saint Rocco card or Derby’s Guardian Angel pin mysteriously appearing on the hotel carpet after we thought it was gone forever. Proof there is a higher power watching over us.

The pastor wove T.S. Eliot into the sermon. Speaking of his life as an agnostic then while visiting a church in Germany during advent services he came to believe in God. He wrote that on his way back to the United States he was taking a different path home. Not to just his physical home but speaking of religion. It seemed fitting in my situation. I wanted the twins to have a Christian base in their life. To know of God but to learn in a way different than I was taught as a child. Merely a different path home.

The pictures are a little blurry. Andrew did a wonderful job considering we turned the flash off. (Click on the photo for a larger view)

I brought the video recorder but in the chaos of children climbing over pews, singing and refusing to wear their shoes I forgot to get it out of my bag. I wish we had the video because you could see how Derby thought it would be hilarious to fling himself backwards throughout the baptism and giggle hysterically. Loen mainly seemed concerned that Derby was getting his hair washed.