As I mentioned, are spending the season of Lent telling stories. As we wait for the light to return, as we wait for Easter, for resurrection, for new life, we’ll answer together: How did you come to the waters? and Where has the Spirit taken you since that day? Guest writers and friends will join us each week and I hope you will too!
You may not resonate with everything you read, and that is okay, even the point. Storytelling is a window into another perspective, another way of viewing the world. Storytelling connects us to experiences we might otherwise never encounter. These stories will remind us that there are as many expressions of life with God as there are people.
I was eight when my parents asked me if I wanted to be baptized. I remember feeling the weight and honor of the word baptism. In the Catholic church, this step is a sacrament, a mark on your life, typically as an infant. I had attended so many baptisms by then, watching these little babies giving their consent with coos and wide eyes, parents beaming with pride. For whatever reason, likely something to do with the fact that my parents had me early into their teenage years, I had not been baptized yet. And I found myself simultaneously wishing they had done it before I could opt in and feeling honored that I got to use my voice to say a wholehearted and confident yes.
The ceremony of it all made my heart very still. I closed my eyes as the oil was pressed onto my forehead, blessing me with a tactile moment to hold onto. The water was splashed over me from all sides like the eyes of the church witnessing me. I felt loved, and I felt like I said yes to the right thing.
I didn’t think about that moment again for another ten years.
I sat up breathing heavily a short time after my 18th birthday, waking up from a dream. In this dream, I was in a car that flew off a bridge and into a free-fall. Straight towards the water. I spend the whole dream falling into realizations of there being more. More grace, more meaning, more love. More. And when I woke up, my heart was distinctly marked with something sacred. There, alone in my room, I told Jesus I wanted Him to be my more.
Ten years after that, I had another dream that the pastor of our little church lowered me into the water of the Austin Greenbelt—one of my favorite places in the world. That Sunday, the same pastor announced an invitation for baptism in the coming weeks. A short time after that, I was baptized in the water surrounded by my friends, family, and my daughter watching closely.
My life has been marked by many moments of coming to the water. Each one is distinctly important in leading me to the next. In every instance, the event changed nothing… and everything. These moments have encompassed every bit of the mystery promised in baptism. Collectively, they’ve led me to consider coming back to the water daily.
When I think about the beauty and meaning of being baptized, I don’t think about all the debatable theological questions of what it is and what it isn’t. Or the natural question that comes after reading these words: which of those moments was the real baptism?
To which I answer Yes.
When John the Baptist submerged thirsty hopefuls into the water, it didn’t make water or the trees or the air or the body more holy. God made all of that, after all. It is and always has been the power of the opt-in. The sacred mystery of coming to the waters is the invitation to be submerged and the willingness to do it.
The call.
The response.
Neither carrying much of anything alone, but together … well, together carries the power of death and resurrection.
These moments are clear memories of times I said yes and felt in my mind, body, and spirit that God was hoping I would. But they have also changed the lens through which I see in my daily life. I can hardly pass a body of water, a tub, or a moment of rain without the urge to change all my plans and get in — all the way in. There are certainly invitations I don't see and pass by, but more often than not, I feel a whisper calling me into something. Into forgiveness, into kindness, into courage, into submission, into speaking up, into more. Into the waters.
I’m an Austin native, born to Nicaraguan parents. I am married to Brian and mom to two fiery girls. I’ve spent my last ten years deeply embedded in the nonprofit space of our city, and it’s given me a deep love for stories of all kinds. I believe in the power of prayer and coffee, and I make it a point to start my days there— not because I am better than anyone, but because without both, my default personality is full of sarcasm and eye rolls. I have a special place in my heart for the transitional seasons of life. For the people waiting to “arrive”, and those who got where they hoped to and ask “now what”?
You can find more of Iesha’s writing on her substack: Just For Today. You might enjoy this essay, or this one!