Some moments feel ordinary while they are happening, only later revealing how sacred they truly were. I thought my baptism would simply be an outward expression of my faith. I did not expect it to be another sign from my mother.
My baptism was not an impulsive decision. It was something my heart had been moving toward for nearly two years.
My faith and beliefs are deeply personal, and the path that led me here has been anything but straightforward. It has been tumultuous at times, peculiar at others, but through it all I have finally found peace. Simply put, I have found peace in Jesus.
I have found peace in His resurrection and in the deep certainty that there is life beyond this one.
I do not consider myself religious in the traditional sense. I do not believe a relationship with God is confined to one church, denomination, or prescribed path. I struggle with dogma, self-righteousness, and the idea that any one person holds all the answers.
What I do believe is that every individual can develop a relationship with the divine if they sincerely seek it. And I believe
THAT relationship can and will
transform a life.
For nearly two years I wrestled with whether I should be baptized in Utah or Phoenix, simply because of all the religious tension that has been in our extended family for over 30 years. I worried about how it might affect my children, daughters-in-law, and grandsons. In the end, Phoenix felt peaceful and uncomplicated, simply an experience I wanted to keep between myself and the
inward relationship I had gained with Christ.
The morning of my baptism felt like any other rushed Sunday morning. At the last minute, I asked my husband to grab my mother’s Bible from the nightstand and put it in my backpack.
I have several of my mother’s Bibles. For some reason, I wanted one with me during this trip to Phoenix while helping care for my husband's 94-year-old mother. I chose a small mahogany Bible with gold-embossed leaves on the cover. I had never read this particular Bible, but without question my mother had read it cover to cover, just as she did all of her Bibles.
My mother had a relationship with scripture that I deeply admired. The Bible grounded her. It guided her decisions and seemed to make her softer, humbler, and more peaceful with each passing year.
Because the Bible had become so important to her, the one thing I wanted after she died was the Bible she had been reading. One day, she opened it and wrote my name on the bookmark.
On January 31, 2024, my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. She calmly decided against treatment and passed away on April 3, only a little over two months later.
The final months we shared became priceless. We talked for hours and came to know each other more deeply. We tried to be honest about almost everything, though some painful truths remained untouched because certain wounds felt too deep and too late to fully reopen.
The final days of my mother’s life felt surreal, as though the veil between heaven and earth had grown thin. Days before she died, she called out for her sister Barbara, who had passed years earlier. As Mom drifted in and out of consciousness, I read Psalms aloud to her from her Bible. I opened to Psalm 100 and, after reading it, tucked the Bible beneath her arm where it remained until she passed away.
Later, when designing her headstone, a line from Psalm 100 felt perfect:
“His steadfast love endures forever.”
I believe that is the message my mother would want us to remember.
Before she died, I asked her several times to send me a sign from heaven if she could. I never remember her answering me directly, but I knew she heard me.
Because the Bible had become so important to her, the one thing I wanted after she died was the Bible she died with under her arm and I read Psalms 100. Before she died, she opened it and wrote my name on the bookmark that had all the books of the Old and New Testament on it. I used that bookmark for months and then lost it. I have been so sick about losing it and hoping one day I would find it.
The third sign came the day of my baptism.
That morning, Kevin grabbed Mom’s Bible and tossed it into my backpack before we left for church. Somehow we mixed up the baptism time and arrived thirty minutes early. Sitting quietly in the back seat, I pulled out Mom’s Bible to read and settle my mind before the service.
When I opened it, I saw the same type of bookmark she had written my name on years earlier.
And it was resting at Psalm 100.
I wept.
That bookmark resting at Psalm 100 felt like another whisper from my mother reminding me:
His Steadfast Love Endures Forever.
