“Truly, truly I say unto you, accept a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
My husband and I had been married for about five years. We settled in at his parent’s house in his neighborhood where he grew up. It seemed everywhere we lived, rather at the daycare house or at his parent’s house, there was always a pastor on the block. On his block, there just so happened to be two of them. There was no escaping spiritual guidance.
One day, my husband, out of thin air asked me, “Tanya, have you ever been baptized?” I said, “Yeah, Mama had me dipped three times.” We both laughed out loud. Suddenly, he got quiet and said, “I want to get baptized, too.” My heart leaped out of joy! I wondered to myself, what could have caused him to want to be baptized? It was Jesus. He’d been working on him for a long time, bringing him into his calling, and following him.
My husband hadn’t grown up in the church like I did, so, he knew very little about the Bible verses, baptism or the Holy Spirit. He had never seen anyone get baptized before. But he knew how to pray, because he saw his daddy, big Mac, kneeling on his knees every night to pray, no matter what. The hunt was to find someone to baptize my husband. By then, pastor Verheuls had left the block and headed back to Michigan, and the other pastor informed him he had to be a member of his church. They performed their baptisms at the beach and at the time there was not enough candidates. My husband was disappointed.
Soon after, my Aunt Kat in Christ, whose church I grew up in, wanted me to come back to church and help. By then, my uncle John had passed on to glory and new pastors had arrived to take over. It was Jesus orders, because my husband was sincere in his heart about being baptized. The time had come for the sign up for candidates to be baptized and my husband was the first to sign up. He was so happy. I’d never seen him that happy and excited, not even on our wedding day. They dipped him down in that water, dying to the old man spirit and resurrecting in the new with Christ Jesus! Hallelujah. Some of his friends and homeboys laughed at him because he was baptized in a kiddie pool. He didn’t care. He was a new creature in Christ. And he is just that, because he is reading the Bible more than me. He the one with the Mary spirit on him, sitting at Jesus feet, wanting to hear a good message, and I’m the one with the Martha spirit, running around the house, cooking, cleaning and trying to keep things in order so much, I been reading the book of Joshua for two months.
I’m proud of my husband. And even though he doesn’t know it all, he enjoys learning about Jesus and the stories in the Bible. He gets up with me at midnight every night to hear a word from God. He gets upset when he reads about someone doing another wrong in the Bible or not listening to God and serving other idols, upsetting God. I get a kick out of his reactions and how he tells the stories. He enjoys conversating with the boys in the hood, telling them about Jesus, all that will listen.
Our son recently kicked him out of the computer room where he usually would do his reading as he took over the computer, the TV, and the table. We are now in the process of dedicating a small portion of his Raider’s, boom-boom room for his reading area. I believe it’s his calling to draw the young and old homeboys in the hood to Christ. He’s cute, and I love him even more. Thank you, Jesus. Here is a picture of his little prayer and reading area. And you better not move a pen or a marker unless you want to hear a raging storm.
