by Trish Ryan
Paul and Will stood on either side of me, and Paul began to pray: “God,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder, “thank you that You love Trish. It sounds like she’s pretty tormented right now, and so we ask You in Jesus’ name to show us what the root of that is—reveal what’s going on—and help us pray through that.” Then, without warning, both of my hands—which had been clasped in a prayerful fold in front of me—formed hard fists and flew out to either side, punching both Will and Paul in the stomach.
“Omigod,” I gasped. “I’m so sorry!” I wasn’t, really. Something about punching them felt good. Suddenly, I was a little afraid of myself, wondering what I might do next.
“Well, God,” Paul said with a wry smile, “I don’t know all the details of Trish’s story, but I’m going to take a wild guess and say that the problem here might be anger toward men. Trish, does that sound possible?”
“Ye-yes,” I stammered, stunned by his good humor. How could he laugh when I just punched him? How could Will? I looked up at them slowly, astonished.
“I get the sense that you’ve been pretty badly hurt by some of the men in your past,” Paul said, “and that it might be really helpful for you to forgive them.”
“How do I do that?” It seemed odd that forgiving someone I’d dated ten years ago might help me not want to punch my guy friends now, but what the heck? It might be worth a shot.
“It’s pretty straightforward,” Paul explained. “You simply say, ‘In the name of Jesus, I choose to forgive x for doing y.’ You can add anything that comes to mind.”
“Okay,” I agreed, taking a big breath. “In Jesus’ name, I choose to forgive Chip for cheating on me. I choose to forgive Josh for breaking my heart. I choose to forgive Tim for leading me on when he never planned to marry me. I choose to forgive Drew for being a selfish bisexual hedonist. I choose to forgive Mark for planning a future without me even while he said he loved me. I forgive them all. Amen.” I looked up at Paul and Will, wondering what came next. The urge to punch them hadn’t subsided.
“Um, Trish,” Will said. “You were married before, right? Did you include that guy in your list?”
The muscles across the back of my shoulders stiffened. “Why would I ever do that?” I asked. “You don’t know what happened. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness.”
“It’s not about him,” Paul said gently. “You don’t have to feel all warm and fuzzy about him—or any of these guys. All you have to do is be willing to be free of the effects of what they did to you—you know, the stuff that left you wanting to punch other men. You have to trust God to avenge you, rather than hold on to all that hurt yourself.”
“Fine,” I spat at him, looking down at the floor. “God, I forgive my ex-husband for lying to me and forcing me to do whatever he wanted.” Saying the words out loud was like puking foaming lava, the shame burning its way from my gut to the edges of my lips as I choked out each betrayal. “I forgive him for all the times he accused me of cheating on him, and the times he said no other man would ever have me,” I continued. “I forgive him for telling me over and over again that I was the reason his life was so miserable. I forgive him for not being any of the things he promised.” The lyrics from that song pulsed through my head: “How can I forget the times you lied to me? How can I forget the times you said no one would want me? What about that?”
“Why should I forgive him?” I demanded angrily. “He doesn’t deserve it. He’s the one who did all this stuff, why should I let him off the hook?”
“Because you can’t punish him,” Paul said gently. “But if you give this to Jesus, all those things you mentioned—they can’t hurt you anymore; they’ll heal. God will still know what happened,” he assured me, “but you won’t have to live with the aftermath.”
Could that be true? I wondered, doubtful that I’d ever be “healed” (whatever that meant) from the ravages of my marriage. If I forgot, wouldn’t that mean I could just go out and make the same stupid mistakes again? Didn’t I need to remember to keep myself protected in the future? But nothing I’d tried in the past to protect myself had worked.
“In Jesus’ name,” I prayed, pushing deeper into this Jesus thing than I ever thought I’d go. “I choose to forgive my ex-husband. I’m counting on you, God,” I continued, “to make sure I don’t ever do something as stupid as that again.”
“Do you think maybe you need to forgive yourself for being with him?” Will asked.
“I wonder,” Paul added, handing me a wad of tissue, “if perhaps you need to forgive God?”
I stared at them, dumbfounded. When would this be finished? Did I have to forgive everybody who had ever known my ex-husband before I could move on? “Fine,” I said again. “In Jesus’ name, I forgive myself for marrying my ex-husband. God, please forgive me for being so stupid,” I added spontaneously, my words connecting with genuine feeling for the first time all night. “I’m so sorry I did that. I’m so sorry I tried to force you to make it work. And God, I forgive You for letting it get so bad. Thank you for rescuing me. Amen.”
“Trish,” Paul responded, placing his hand back on my shoulder (but still standing, I noticed, beyond the reach of my strike zone), “as your brothers in Christ, we pronounce you forgiven, in Jesus’ name. We bless you to know that you’re fully free of all you have confessed. And we bless you to know that the things you have forgiven are in your past; we bind any power they may have had over you and bless you to live as a new creation. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
“Amen,” Will and I echoed.
I thanked them awkwardly, then followed them back out to the living room where Pascha was setting out dinner for some other members of our group who had come by. I cringed, expecting an embarrassing blow-by-blow of my transgressions, for either Paul or Will to say, “Man—we didn’t know what a mess you were!” But nothing at all was said. Nothing. And in the days and weeks to come, neither Paul nor Will mentioned anything I’d said or done that day, or treated me any differently. It was as if the minute we finished praying, they’d forgotten the whole thing.
On my way home that night, for the first time in weeks, I didn’t wonder what would happen if I walked in front of a bus. That, to me at least, seemed like progress; a bit of a miracle, if you will.
AT AMY’S PRODDING, I decided to get baptized. Publicly, in one of those total immersion tanks Evangelicals are so fond of. I wasn’t sure I was ready to step—or sink, as the case may be—further into this life with Jesus, and Amy knew it. But she insisted, over and over, that there was power in baptism, that making a public declaration of my faith would help me, even if I didn’t understand how or why.
“But I’ve already been baptized,” I told her. “Remember—I used to be Catholic.”
“How much do you remember about that day?” she asked.
“Exactly nothing,” I admitted. “But I’m sure my parents have a picture.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said, laughing. “It’s not about producing evidence; it’s about making a decision and backing it up with action. If you stand up for Jesus, that’s like standing up to the bully on the playground, a way of telling Satan to back off and leave you alone. You only have to do it once, but you have to do it.”
“Fine,” I conceded. “I’ll get dunked.” I didn’t believe her in the least that it would make the slightest bit of difference.
THEY ANNOUNCED THE next baptism, and I signed up. In the required preparatory class, Pastor Chuck joked about how we all had great timing and told horror stories of unheated water in the trough during the previous winter’s ceremony. I expected the class to be filled with Bible verses we needed to memorize and a harsh scrutiny of our sins (I’m not sure what made me think this—nothing at the Vineyard thus far involved either memorization or harsh scrutiny—I guess I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop). But after Pastor Chuck explained a few Bible passages and why the Vineyard believes in baptism (none of which we needed to commit to memory) he handed out a sheet covering the major topic o
f our class: what to wear while immersing oneself for Jesus. There was a long list of things to be avoided: white clothing topped the list, followed by bikinis, sheer fabrics, and (incredibly) macramé.
ON THE MORNING of my baptism, I was in a foul mood. I hated everyone, and I was quite sure everyone hated me. I was also sure that I didn’t care, that I’d just as soon spend the day holed up in my bedroom, reading the latest John Irving novel and trying not to kick my dog.
Amy called at noon to tell me she’d pick me up at two o’clock; I told her not to bother. She told me she was coming anyway, that she didn’t care what kind of mood I was in, and that I was being dunked in the name of Jesus today if she had to kidnap me and wrestle me into my tub herself.
“It won’t work,” I told her. “We have no spout. The only way to fill our tub is via the tiny shower head, and if you planned to do that you’d have had to start yesterday.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I’ll stick your head in the Brita if I have to. I’m coming there at two—you’re going to be ready, and you’re going to be baptized. Capice?”
“Fine,” I conceded.
When we arrived at the Baptist Church whose sanctuary we borrowed for such events (the school gym not lending itself to adult dunking that didn’t involve a softball tossed at a target), I was still in a bad mood, and Amy was oblivious, as if God promised her a puppy or a new car if she got me into the building and under water on schedule. She ignored my scowl, and the litany of snarky observations I kept up as we made our way into the building. We were told to head down to the basement to change clothes, then break off into pairs to confess our sins and receive prayer. I had been such a snot all morning that I was rather certain I wouldn’t be able to fit in all my confessing in the allotted half hour; Amy assured me that God was quite efficient when need be.
First, though, I headed into the bathroom and changed into my baptism clothes: a one-piece bathing suit, covered by my gray Wheaton T-shirt and denim shorts. I looked more like I was headed to a beach volleyball tournament than to receive a blessed sacrament, but that seemed to be the case with everyone around me. I saw two guys in Hawaiian-print trunks, and a girl wearing a bathing suit and overalls. I broke my first reluctant smile of the day at the sight of a man who paired his bathing suit with a dress shirt and tie; he wanted his pictures to look a little formal. “It will make my grandmother so happy,” he explained.
Amy and I found a quiet corner, and as she promised, we got through my confession of negativity rather quickly. Then she prayed blessings over me the likes of which I’d never heard before, quoting passages I vaguely remembered from the Old Testament about coming under God’s covering and being blessed going in and blessed going out. She asked God to command His angels concerning me, and thanked Him for the good work He was finishing in my life. I didn’t understand what she was saying, but it sounded so good that the knot in my stomach loosened for the first time in what felt like weeks. I still didn’t think this baptism thing would do any good, or that it would make any discernible difference in my life. But praying made Amy so happy that it was worth it, just to hear her words flying in the air around me and to see how happy Jesus made her.
We finished praying, and I fell in line with the rest of the about-to-be-baptized, following them into the church sanctuary, where a crowd of friends and well-wishers filled the pews, singing a song about the glory of the Lord. My mind drifted off as two guys and then the girl in overalls offered brief explanations about why they were here today and how they came to follow Jesus, then waded down into the pool and went under. I wasn’t paying attention; I’m not sure why. I wasn’t bored, just disconnected, like I was sitting in a school assembly on first aid or the importance of not drinking and driving, trying to look attentive while my mind wandered.
“My name is Trish,” I said when my turn came. “I’ve always believed in God, I guess, in some way or another. But I always made it clear that I didn’t think of Him the way you do; that I wasn’t one of those Christians who believed that Jesus is the only path to God. Well I guess I’m here today to publicly change my mind; to say to the world, ‘Yes, I believe that now.’” It was the truth, I realized—whether I “felt” it in that moment or not. I’d seen enough to believe that Jesus was the real deal, that he had the answers I’d been searching for. I still wasn’t sure what this meant for my life. But it was refreshing to realize that my spiritual state wasn’t dependent on my emotions, that my relationship with Jesus wouldn’t crumble just because I had a mood swing or thought Amy’s insistence on my getting baptized was a little silly. It was nice that finally the truth wasn’t dependent upon how I felt about it.
I waded into the pool. Despite Chuck’s promises, the water was pretty cold. Chelsea, our women’s pastor, stood on one side of me, Amy on the other. Chelsea asked me a series of questions: “Trish, do you commit your life to the leadership of God the Father?”
“I do.”
“By believing in his sacrifice on the Cross, do you receive the forgiveness of your sins by way of Jesus Christ, God the Son?”
“I do.”
“Do you ask for empowering for a God-pleasing life from God the Holy Spirit?”
“I do.”
“Then, Trish,” Chelsea continued, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” She and Amy put their hands behind my back and lowered me into the water; I grabbed my nose at the last minute so I didn’t come up choking and spitting. Then I was up again, soaking wet. A quick glance at the clapping crowd, and I was out of the pool and wrapped in a towel in the back room, with dozens of people hugging and congratulating me. This I didn’t get at all; it wasn’t like I had done anything special, anything any one of them couldn’t or hadn’t already done. I accepted their warm wishes the way I’d accept the autograph of some obscure Scandinavian actor, thinking, I’m not sure why you’re giving me this, but I guess the polite thing to do is play along. As soon as I could extricate myself from the soggy mob, I grabbed my bag of dry clothing and ran to the bathroom, anxious to be warm, dry, and somewhere—anywhere—else.
But my baptismal duty was not yet fulfilled. After we were dunked and dried, we were supposed to go back to the basement, where members of the church prayer team would be there to pray for us to receive a second baptism—the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I’d been around long enough to know what this was, how people’s bodies twitched and some prayed in tongues. I was ambivalent about this; it didn’t scare me, but I didn’t much care if it happened. I couldn’t see any upside to praying in some garbled language. And as for the shaking and falling over, there didn’t seem to be much point in it. I’d seen people writhing on the floor at various times over the past year, but none of them seemed any different when they got back up again. If being knocked over by God didn’t change you somehow, I thought, what was the point?
Nevertheless, I headed down to the basement. Anonymous people came by and prayed for me, touching my shoulder, my forehead, my feet. One person even prayed for my eyes and ears, asking God to open my senses so I could see and hear Him. Then Juan, one of the more enthusiastic members of the prayer team, prayed for me to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I stood there, eyes closed, starting to sway from fatigue as much as anything supernatural. Suddenly I fell, someone caught me, and then I was lying on the floor, surrounded by people mumbling in tongues and thanking God. “More Lord,” they said. “More Holy Spirit.” My right leg started to bang against the floor, and I felt like I was doing crunches, my abdominal muscles clenching and releasing like a garbage disposal, chewing me up from the inside. I heard voices praising God and I thought about how much I wanted to get out of there, how much the leg banging and ab crunching hurt. It didn’t feel like God; it felt like I’d landed in some bizarre hazing ritual. When the prayer team moved on to greener pastures and the coast was clear, I got up, gathered my wet clothes from the table, and headed upstairs to beg Amy to take me home.
Nothing profound h
appened that day, at least from what I could tell at the time. But I was committed, officially on the Jesus team. The snake dreams dwindled, and that alone seemed worth it. When I look back, it’s clear that, somehow, that dunking gave me new ammunition against the depressing thoughts that had dogged me. It was as if I upped my coverage under Jesus’ spiritual insurance program and now was protected and assured reimbursement when I had a spiritual fender bender or even a head-on collision. My faith was still shaky, but it had substance. I watched carefully, waiting for Jesus to rescue me.
PART III
Enduring
Chapter Eighteen
Tending the Flock
Paul and Pascha’s small group grew to over thirty, and they announced that the time had come for us to break up into subgroups that were actually small. Unbelievably, I was asked to colead one of these offshoots. I wasn’t sure I was ready for such an undertaking, but my ambivalence was overcome by my inherent love of leading things. The truth was, I’d spent my whole life cheering on groups of people who were far ahead of me in understanding and talent: I was elected captain of our state champion high school gymnastics team despite the fact that I couldn’t do gymnastics, and president of my college dance company even though I hadn’t taken a single ballet class until I was almost nineteen. And if my years of new age practice had refined any of my inner qualities, it was the ability to wing it when I didn’t know what I was doing. I assumed that if I worked hard to catch up and showered our new group with enthusiasm, things would work out fine.
I was paired with our friend Will (the guy who had prayed for me with Paul the day that I’d punched them). A lifelong Christian who had studied the Bible since kindergarten, Will knew not only my deepest secrets, he knew the Bible like the back of his hand. He quoted verses from memory, whereas I was forever saying things like “Isn’t there someplace, in one of the Gospels, maybe, where Jesus says something like ‘things tend to work out for good people’?”