Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Baptism

Or Bap-ba-tism as B-man would say.

Sunday was the big day! B was baptized! Back in August I wrote about B getting saved/accepting Jesus as his Savior.  As a Christians, we believe that the next step is to publicly declare that we've accepted Jesus and the way to do that is through Baptism.

B has been looking forward to this day for a while.  Ryan & I have been trying to figure out how to make sure things would go off without a meltdown.  Ryan had the great idea of having him wear a swim mask so that he didn't get upset when the water got on his face.  I did my best to walk him through what would happen.  We decided that I would walk up with B and stand nearby in case of emergency.

Saturday night B stayed the night with Nene.  He told her he needed to go to bed at 7:30 so he'd be in a good mood for his big day.  Sunday morning he was "both excited and nervous".  At church, he got a shirt and he got to write how accepting Jesus and baptism made him feel. First he wrote this:

Then he added to it:

Pastor Joe talked to B, and the others who were getting baptized, and cracked a joke.  He said families could pay him to hold you under longer then you could pay more than your family to go under a shorter amount of time.  B's hand shot up.  "Does the amount of time you're under equal how much you love God?"  Joe assured him that it did not!  If it did, I'm sure B would have opted to stay under as long as possible! Baptism was at the end of the service.  B waited patiently, although he did need to use the restroom a lot...
 

Finally, the time came!  Watch until the end! 

We have such a strong group of friends.  One of the daughters of another family in our group was baptized right after B, along with her aunt! So we had a great group of friends come celebrate with us.  B was on Cloud 9.  He told me about 10 times that this was the best day ever! 

I'd have to agree! It was a great day.  A day I wasn't sure we'd see for B.  Back when he was non-verbal, I didn't know if he'd say anything.  Much less make a profession of faith.  I didn't like that possibility but I know that God has a plan to bring all men to Himself so I knew He had a plan for non-verbal people.  As I learned more about autism, I became more worried.  Many autistic people are black and white. There's not a lot of grey area.  Things must be seen to be believed.  Christianity is just not like that.  Faith isn't like that.  I worried that B would not be able to understand and accept something so abstract.  I'm so thankful that God answered my prayers.  

Here are some other pictures from B's big day, thanks to a sweet friend! 
Waiting his turn. 

Praying afterwards!

Celebrate!

 I made a cake for our family dinner Sunday night.  B decorated it: Happy Baptism To Me



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