Where to start... How about the end?

I am just finishing up a set of prep papers for a meeting tomorrow that my boss has with the CEO at 10:00 AM (it is now 2:22 AM--I back dated to keep yesterday's date on the blog). An assignment I received a half hour before the end of the day. I have 8 tasks and have finished 7.

Part of the reason that I am finishing so late is that I did not arrive home from bible study until around 11:40 PM, nearly three hours later. Sometime during the second half of the study hour, I started growing dizzy. Oh, but what a great discussion we had...almost as good at the nooner bible study I had attended earlier. [How fortunate am I that I can attend two bible studies on the same day?]

When I went to stand, the room shifted and I lost my balance. At first, I thought it was because I had not eaten enough, but eventual tingling hands/feet, blurred vision, and fiery pains running up and down my spine pointed to MS and how stressful (good and bad) the past few days have been.

Pastor D helped me to the car and then eventually left. [Before you think less of him, I told him to go. He could not drive me home and get my car home and had a family waiting for him. I was not honest with him about how poorly I felt, and he is still not used to how quickly I can sink.] By that time, I was lying across the front seats, not caring a bit that different pieces of the car were pushing into my side and that I was making the pain in my back worse. I wanted, as I am oft wont to do of late, to be on the ground. Sitting up is too much work. Fainting from any place other than flat on my back scares me. So, I lay there struggling not to faint and decided to call JW to ask her about her day. Surely she would natter at me...and pray.

Of course, I had had to go to the bathroom before I left work, but raced out the door because I was running late. When I arrived, I did not want to interrupt bible study since it had already started. Oh, I'm here guys, but I have to go to the bathroom. Nope. Not something I wanted to say. So as the pain in my bladder began to build, JW kept suggesting I cast about for some conveniently located bushes. There were two very large ones in a nearby yard. Now, forget that they are the bushes of the president of the church to which I would like to belong. What she didn't understand was that there was no possible way I was getting across the street up over the curb to avail myself of the "natural" bathroom option. Oh, how I wanted a rescue!

When I could not stand the pain in my back and the pain in my bladder any more, I started driving, JW encouraging me not to wreck as I drove through cars on both sides of the street, but could not see clearly enough to make out the distance between them. Just after I started driving, B returned my call so that I could tell her my news (to come later) before she comes this weekend. So, at JW's wise suggestion, I pulled over to talk with her briefly. Then the police came.

Or rather a policeman passed me three times before pulling up behind me. He turned off his lights and then got out of his car. When he turned away, I quickly pulled away, heart pounding and quite scared. A strange man. JW talked me home and even comforted me when the policeman followed me home and parked a short ways from my front door. After much speculation (during which she asked if I had the Book of Concord with me because swinging it would be a good defense--it is rather heavy!), JW concluded that he probably ran my plates and was checking to see if I could enter the address on record. Most likely the folk who live in the house I spent three hours parked in front of reported a nefarious character or something like that. Or perhaps being parked on the street a ways down to talk with B was somehow suspicious.
So, home I made it and back to work, even though getting inside took a rather herculean effort on my part.

We started Psalm 19 during the nooner study, and Pastor blew through 9 verses! He had optimistically hoped to finish the entire psalm, but I believe, given the convivial nature of and rather intelligent group there, he should have at least planned for two weeks. What is interesting about this psalm is that it has the two parts of God's message to us: the Law and the Gospel.

I rather unashamedly admit that as soon as I could, I was peeling A out of her carrier and holding her. Unfortunately, however, she wanted to nurse not to long after that and JW's mother who had just arrived the evening before ended up with A afterwards. I did get one more fix and got to change two diapers. So, a fair bit of baby therapy.took place as I was studying the Word.

However, all of that is not my news. This morning, after an exceptionally dark day and night, Pastor called with a crazy idea: baptizing me on Sunday when he did A. He had already spoken to JW about sharing the day with me (she was rather enthusiastic about that and still is) and had also asked if she and her husband would serve as my baptism sponsors (not entirely sure about this role, but I know there is a liturgy lesson about this in that Catechism lesson book I can consult to learn more than the bits he told me--although the part I liked was they are to serve as my memory should I forget my day of baptism--boy will I need that service!). She called her husband. He agreed. All Pastor had to do was call me.

To be honest, I swore I saw the photo for my boss flash on the phone when it rang. I would not have taken Pastor's call this morning because I am struggling with our "lessoning" (or lack thereof because we ended up talking) from last night and how upset I was. I actually answered the phone, "Hello ___) thinking it was my boss. But, alas, it was Pastor with an offer that still, even in my exhaustion, dizziness, blurred vision, and pain amazes me.

Why would someone who has been a Christian for 31 years get baptized? Well, for the first part, whatever happened when I was two is not clear to me, troubles me for I believe it was more a dedication than baptism. Second, I have learned, studying the catechism, that what I thought was a baptism when I was 11 was instead merely a confession of faith. [Remember the Protestant syllogism.] The Sacrament of baptism must have two parts, water and the Word. While I had water in abundance, the only Word was my own.

So, I have been distressed over the uncertainty I battle when it comes to baptism. I long for, crave actually, the assurance of being able to say, I am baptized, and stand under that Grace. Pastor had repeatedly told me that if we could not prove what happened when I was two was a baptism, then that was easy to take care of eventually. He would baptize me. "No problem," he'd smile. But I want it now, I would think.

As much as I long to finish the catechism instruction so that I might join the rest of St. Athanasius Lutheran Church at the alter, I have feel conflicted about the special dispensation Lord's Supper Pastor gave me. He has offered, in another time of great distress, to do so again, but as much as I really, really, really want to say yes, to beg him to race on over, I do not feel comfortable because I think (note the careful avoidance of the word believe) that people who receive the Lord's Supper ought to be baptized. [I have no quotes from the Book of Concord on this one yet.]

Hence, Pastor got on email this morning to consult with his brothers in faith (fellow pastors) about his idea to do so now, to do so with A, and then checked with JW once he received the encouragement that his idea was sound.

You literally could have knocked me over with a feather when he asked me what I thought about his idea. Did I wanted to be baptized on Sunday? You will never know how much I have longed for that offer! He took my breath away, stilled my turmoil, and opened my heart to such giddiness that I have been floating off the ground all day. I will soon get to say with all certainty, I am baptized! And this after the darkest night I have had in a long, long, long time.

Joy truly does come in the morning.


Baptism is quite a different thing from all other water. This is not because of its natural quality but because something more noble is added here. God Himself stakes His honor, His power, and His might on it. [emphasis mine] Therefore, Baptism is not only natural water, but a divine, heavenly, holy, and blessed water, and whatever other terms we can find to praise it. This is all because of the Word, which is a heavenly, holy Word, which no one can praise enough. For it has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do (Isaiah 55:10-11). (LC, Part IV, 17)

So you see plainly that there is no work done here by us, but a treasure, which God gives us and faith grasps (Ephesians 2:8-9). It is like the benefit of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, which is not a work, but a treasure included in the Word. It is offered to us and received by faith. (LC, part IV, 37)

Yes, it [Baptism] shall and must be something outward, so that it may be grasped by our senses and understood, and by them be brought into the heart. (LC, Part IV, 30)

So, when our sins and conscience oppress us, we strengthen ourselves and take comfort and say, "Nevertheless, I am baptized. And if I am baptized, it is promised to me that I shall be saved and have eternal life, both in soul and body." For that is the reason why these to things are done in Baptism: the body--which can graps nothing but the water--is sprinkled and, in addition, the Word is spoken for the soul to grasp. (LC, Part IV, 44-45)


This great work of God, this gift of salvation, this assurance against the attacks of the devil, this act "so full of consolation and grace that heaven and earth cannot understand it" (LC, PartIV, 39) is to be mine in just four more days!

Knowing that, how can I be discouraged that I lay across the front seats, wishing for another rescue and worried that I will not be able to work tomorrow, let alone finish my work this evening? As, He has repeatedly done in the past, God was sufficient to keep me safe even when I was too chicken to ask Pastor for help for the 1,000th time. So, I choose to end this day dwelling upon Pastor's offer, JW's generous response, and the gift I am about to receive.

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Lest you not yet appreciate the wonder of this day, I shall pass on one more tidbit: JW stayed on the phone with me while I worked on some of the meeting prep, listening and talking even though she was very, very sleepy. After we hung up, I remembered that I had not yet retrieved the mail since I barely made it into the house before falling on the couch for a while. Walking is difficult and I am truly still dizzy, but I decided to check anyway. Somehow I had missed it. Somehow. There was this rather battered box covered with stamps sitting just behind one of the stone lions on my stoop. The label was a green scrap of paper that had a label with my address on it. I recognized it immediately as the outside of the church newsletter. Can you guess what was inside the box? Oh, yes! Praise God in His mercy! My bible and notebook were inside! The pocket Book of Concord was not, but I welcome someone keeping it. [May he or she be as blessed by the doctrine as have I!] I am so very happy to have my bible back with all its highlighted verses and all my notes...oh, my notes! The bible is a bit worse for wear, but I have it once more! The craziest part is that the newsletter is one that I kept from last year in which the part on the catechism covered baptism!