Samson, Best Friends, and Baptism
Just about a month shy of my eldest daughter turning five, we were having a REALLY rough day. I can’t remember the exact situation, but I know we were struggling with still learning how to be a big sister, it was winter so we were stuck inside all the time, and she and I were at odds in a way that I remember at the time felt insurmountable. I remember sitting on the couch with her while her brother napped thinking some version of: “Lord, I am terrible at Mothering. And she is hard to love right now. How can things get any better?”
I remember trying to distract her and so we pulled out some of her Bible story coloring sheets from her preschool because with my eldest, when in doubt, art is the answer. She ended up choosing the story of Samson and the picture is the moment God gave him strength again and he pulled the pagan temple down on himself and the Philistines. (Judges 16)
Nora Beth looked at me and said “what happened to Samson?” I took a deep breath and told her the truth: Samson had died.
Let me back up and say the year leading up to this moment had been one sadly ripe with the discussion of death. One of my dearest friends had passed away 9 months prior and Nora Beth had often asked about her and about Heaven as she watched me grieve. In the weeks leading up to this particular hard day and talking about Samson, we had experienced multiple meltdowns from Nora Beth telling us she was scared of Heaven and she didn’t want to leave her family, her home and her Sneech. We walked through each of these conversations with her with as much honesty, and grace and I often felt like all I did was confuse her more. My amazing counselor guided me often to just plant simple seeds of the Gospel. Tell her the truth, but don’t feel like she has to understand it all right now. Help her cope with her fear, but believe you are sewing small seeds over time that the Lord is trustworthy with.
Fast-forward back to the couch, and big questions and a pretty coloring page that showed Samson’s victory, but also told the truth of his death. “Why did he die?” She asked. My response, with some umming and hemming and hawing, was something about not totally understanding it either, but that Samson had given in to his sin and made a lot of terrible choices that got him to where he was that day. God gave him one more victory by answering his prayer and restoring his strength to bring down a lot of bad people. I braced myself for a lot of fear and another meltdown, but by God’s grace, that turned in to her talking about sin, about how Jesus changes everything because His death paid for our sin, and how she felt a longing to experience Heaven and God’s help here and now as she and I both wrestle with sin.
When I realized where the conversation was going, I quickly hit record on my phone and I listened back to it this morning and heard her confess her love for the Lord, and knowing how much He loves her too.
Me: “Do you want to ask Jesus to be your best friend in your heart forever?”
Nora Beth: “YES!”
Me: “How does He become your best friend?
Nora Beth: “You ask Him!”
And so we did.
Over the last year and a half, Nora Beth has shown so much growth in her love for Jesus and a desire to get to know His Word. About six months ago, she started talking to us about a desire to be baptized after she watched a dear friend of ours experience it, and yesterday, it was Nora Beth’s turn.
This is the “speech” she wrote for the occasion:
“Why I want to be baptized is because I believe in Jesus who is real in Heaven and Heaven is real. I feel like I’m ready, and if you don’t know who Jesus is, I want you to know Jesus is real. He was on Earth, he died on the cross for our sins, and then rose form the dead. I love Him and He is risen.”
I write all this down for a few reasons:
-I want to remember these treasured moments. All of our lives are surrounded by a lot of broken things. When we see the Lord, we place down an Ebenezer and say by Your help I’ve come. It also spurs us on to press through the next hard thing because He was faithful here and He will do it again.
-I want to encourage other people out there who feel like they don’t know how to talk about hard things and big things like the Gospel with children. I am not good at this. Truly. And my children see so much of my gross, brokenness at home. It is truly a miracle and by God’s grace alone that He uses the broken things to reveal His glory, and I want to take this moment to praise Him for that, and to encourage you that He is trustworthy with the grief and the victory too.
- If you are a parent, an aunt or uncle, a sibling, or a friend to any kid out there who is asking these questions, it is OK to not know all the right things to say. Tell them the Truth about Jesus. Tell them that sometimes it can be overwhelming for you too, but that you know that Jesus is trustworthy with things that feel bigger than us. Use an example from your life if you need to. God was gracious to use my grief several times to say that even though I was terribly sad, I had hope. I said lots of other really unnecessary and probably stupid things over that time, but God is bigger than us and our fumbling. They are hungry for so much. Tell them what is true. Sew small seeds. Trust Him with the growth.
If you’re interested, I’ve included the video of my Father, who taught me to love words and to love the Word of God, baptizing our girl on my social media (it was too big to put here on the blog, sadly). Just before this moment, we stood together, my little family and my Dad and all of the body of Christ around us, and sang “Who the Son sets free, He is free indeed, I’m a child of God. Yes, I am.”
Friend, if you want to know that freedom. If you want to find a place for hope that feels impossible. If you want to know a love that will not let you go. Jesus wants to be your best friend forever too.
Whether or not you watch this video, I want you to imagine your Heavenly Father holding your face and saying true things about you to you. The first thing he said to her was: “You turned the lights on in our family.” And dear one, that’s the truth.
“In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”