Defining Moments: If You Go, I'll Go

Third grade.

Here’s Hope, Jesus Cares For You national revival.
Associational worship service in Whiteville.
The invitation.
Butterflies in stomach.
Heart pounding.
A powerful, new feeling fills me.
“If you go, I’ll go,” I say to my best friend.
“If you go, I’ll go,” she says to me.
“If you go, I’ll go,” I say again to my best friend.
“If you go, I’ll go,” she says back to me again.
I went.
My pastor—my dad—was praying with someone.
I prayed with a stranger pastor.
My best friend did the same.

On the bus waiting to go home.
Bouncing from seat to seat.
Laughing.
Filled with unexplainable joy.

Baptismal pool.
Long silence.
Look up.
“Daddy, hurry up.”
His baby.
He was crying.
“I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

Now.

“If you go, I’ll go,” I say to God.
“As you, I’ll be with you,” God says to me.
“I’m going,” I say to God.
“Day by day. One step at a time. I am with you,” God says.
“Always?”
“Always.”
Amen and amen.