I have been married to my husband, Allan, for eight years. When we got married, we had a justice of the peace, but we wrote our own vows. The only “spiritual” part of the day was the word God in the vows. That was about as close to organized religion as I was going to get at that point.

It took a year and a half of trying, but I finally got pregnant with our son, Andrew. When I got pregnant, I said to my husband, “You do realize, honey, that we are going to have to find a church to have this baby baptized in, because you know your mother will flip out if we don’t have him baptized.”

Honestly, my intent was that we’d find a church, preferably close by, that had a mid-week service or at least a late Sunday service so I could still sleep in on Sundays. We’d jump through the hoops to get the baby baptized and then go only at Easter and Christmas until it was time for confirmation class.

God’s plan was different than mine

Al and I looked for churches around town based on their Web sites (or lack of one). One Lutheran church was very close by, and the picture of the pastor on the front page showed him greeting members wearing a cowboy hat and boots. My husband thought that looked promising.

Then my son—from a previous relationship—was invited to a youth group meeting at the Lutheran church by his friend, Jon. I was pregnant at the time and suffering through a bout of the flu. When Ben got home, he was just gushing about how awesome this pastor was. “Mom! You have to talk to this guy! He’s so awesome! We had so much fun! Oh, by the way, I have to take three dozen buns for ham sandwiches for the supper that we’re serving before church on Wednesday night. You can come eat too. I have to be there by 5, and then we can go to church. Mom, you really have to talk to this guy!” He handed me the phone! Apparently he’d been dialing while telling me the story.

So I got on the phone and talked to the pastor. I spilled out all my anger and irritation with religion. I must have babbled to this poor man for over an hour. He just kept saying, “Hmm, hmm. Yep, okay then.” And when I was done with my rant, he invited me to come with Ben to the soup and sandwich supper before the Ash Wednesday service that week. My husband was working the second shift, or something, so he couldn’t come with us. 

Wednesday rolled around, and I hauled my big ol’ pregnant self down to the church.  I was kind of lost once I got there. I knew my son’s friend and his mom, but that was pretty much it. So I was hanging out on the fringes, trying not to get noticed. I didn’t want any of those “churchy” people jumping on me, you know!