We had an infant baptism at church today. It was for Cohen, Debby Wilson’s grandson. During baptism, our pastor is brave enough to invite all the children forward to see. He usually talks quite a bit before the actual sprinkling, so there is a lot of wiggling that goes on, especially from my son. I kept Eliza in my lap and let her stand so she could see.
“See the baby?” I said. She nodded yes and then asked me, “Where is God?”
“I don’t know, where is He?” I asked her back, wondering if she actually knew.
“I dunno?” she said.
A few minutes later, when pastor sprinkled Cohen, Eliza said, “There He is!”
I assume she meant God. You can’t really grill a 2 year old for details, but I thought I would try to get a little more info out of her. “Where?” I said.
“Right there.” Very matter of fact, like she sees God all the time. I gotta wonder about Eliza! What is it that she sees and hears!
One response
The part where Eliza says “There He is!” right at the sprinkling is the detail that stays with me, since it suggests she connected the water itself with God’s presence rather than the pastor’s words. One practical tweak for next time: ask her afterward to point to where she saw God and describe what it looked like, rather than asking where God is. Kids that age often answer a visual question more concretely, and it gives you a better sense of what she’s actually noticing.