Baptism, Anxiety, and Drowning
The prologue of "Is It Well? An Anxious Love Story"
An Opening Letter
To you, my reader,
There’s a verse in Psalm 23 that has stuck out to me for a long time.
You prepare a table before me…
I’ve always liked the idea of God making dinner for me and preparing the table. Tablecloths and the fancy napkins my mom only brings out twice a year. Ham and dinner rolls and lemon cake. But the verse doesn’t end there. It continues.
…in the presence of my enemies.
I don’t want to eat at a table in the presence of my enemies. It doesn’t matter how good the food is, if I’m eating it surrounded by enemies, I’m not going to enjoy it. Why does the writer of Psalm 23 celebrate that kind of meal?
—
My journey with mental health began as a fifteen-year-old, and it took the form of depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. They loomed over me—perceived enemies, each of them—and left me alone and confused about who to talk to or how to describe what was happening.
I sat there, not knowing why I couldn’t feel the peace and joy the Bible talked so much about. Was my faith a sham?
At the table of my life, these enemies seemed to be my only companions.
—
As I’ve sat and prayed and worked with this verse, I’ve felt the Lord gently telling me this is my first step towards healing: learning to eat. I’m learning to become okay with the table God has laid before me because he has prepared good food. I can’t control where I eat. All I can do is learn how to eat.
I don’t know what your table looks like or where its placed, what kind of enemies loom over you. But I hope my story can walk beside you and encourage you; I hope it can remind you there are others learning how to eat as well.
You won’t find easy answers or ten-step solutions in these pages. I have yet to discover a magic light switch or genie bottle to simply fix everything. But I have discovered—time and again—the faithfulness of God.
This book is teaching me how to eat. I pray it does the same for you.
This is my true story.
cheering for you,
drew
i will remember the deeds of the Lord;
yes, i will remember your wonders of old.
i will ponder all your work,
and meditate on your mighty deeds.
your way, O God, is holy.
what god is great like our God?1
Prologue: A Baptism
Nine
I’m standing in church about to get baptized, and I’m wearing a sales rack red swimsuit. It was bought last offseason because Mom loves a deal and even though I couldn’t use it then I would be able to use it next summer and don’t I like bright red things and yes of course you will enjoy it, it has that lining on the inside you like.
Everyone talks about how important baptism is—it felt really important when I sat and talked with Pastor Bowdin about it in his office on Wednesday—so I figure I should be wearing argyle socks or a tweed hat or something more official than this. If Jesus washes my sins away, does leftover chlorine from the public pool do anything to help the process? Do ordinary clothes still work in baptismal waters?
The final song ends, the projector goes dark, and the eighty congregants in the small clapboard church behind the old, peeled-yellow paint store in Stillwater, Oklahoma sit down. Dad puts away his bass and joins Mom and me and Taylor and Avery in our row; he always talks about how he feels a little guilty playing bass in church because he’s worried he’s having too much fun doing it. He wants to make sure he’s still worshiping and stuff. Mom grabs the towel next to her and places it lightly on her lap. Dad gets the camcorder and gives it to Mr. Adam as Mr. Adam gives Dad theirs. Mr. Adam’s daughter is getting baptized too, so they’ve traded cameras to guarantee the video of today won’t be shaky with tears.
“Today is a special day for a church. It’s the height of our celebration of life. Not just life here and now but life then and everlasting. Two of our family members have decided to take the next step in their walk with God and publicly declare their faith in Christ, dedicating a life of following after God in all they do.…”
Pastor Bowdin continues, but I space out. Each Sunday he does a mid-service prayer before his sermon, and sometimes I fall asleep. Once I timed it and it took a full ten minutes—that’s like a third of a Disney show.
I snap back into focus when he asks, “Will our two friends please join me up front?”
Mom does some last-second wardrobe adjustments, trying to smooth out the folds and wrinkles in my t-shirt. My hands feel sweaty and my chest lifts up and down from concentrated breathing.
I awkwardly stand and walk to the front, unsure what to do with my hands or my face. Should I smile? Should I look solemn? Should I close my eyes like my dad does during a really serious worship song?
I opt to put my hands in my swimsuit pockets and face the congregation with a look of consternation—like I’m thinking really thoughtful things. Baptism and stuff.
—
I think I’ve always known I would be baptized. My great-great-grandad was a traveling preacher and a shoe cobbler and a justice of the peace back when Oklahoma was just getting started as a state. I don’t think his faithfulness ever really left the family; it’s like it got buried deep in our bones and stayed there—generation after generation after generation.
in you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.2
On the other side of the family, Grandma Sue has lived on her own ever since Mom was eleven. Mom says Jesus became her best friend because of Grandma Sue; that back in those days Jesus was almost all they had. Now Grandma wakes up each morning around five to spend time with Jesus and pray for my mom and dad and me and Taylor and Avery and all of our future spouses.
Her love of Jesus is in my bones too; it’s like I’ve got a double heaping all the way up and down the family line.
But I know it’s not just my family, I know it’s also me. I can’t say exactly why it’s me too, but I know it’s me too, I know it. I know I love God, and I know I want others to know about that love. And my great-great-grandad and dad and Grandma Sue and mom say that’s what baptism is.
they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
that he has done it.3
—
Pastor Bowdin’s hand reaches towards mine.
“Drew? Will you join me?”
I nod and step into the baptismal. The water is warm and feels like water. I’m not sure what I expected it to feel like, but it feels normal.
I glance at the congregation and look at my family. Mom is resting her head on Dad’s shoulder, and dark spots on his shirt illuminate her tears. The towel is still on her lap—she may need it more than me.
Pastor Bowdin turns to me and smiles.
“Drew, do you believe that Jesus Christ is your Savior and that he has saved you from your sins?”
I say, “Yes,” and try to be bold. I just started going to speech therapy for a stutter, and baptism is not something you stutter over.
“And do you want to profess your love for God and your desire to follow him for your entire life?”
“Yes.”
My pastor smiles again and says, reassuringly, “I now baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
He places my right hand over my nose and my left hand across my chest. He leans down and lowers me gently. My back hits the water first, then the water rushes over my eyes and around my head.
and God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. and it was so.4
I am underwater.
Nineteen
I go underwater multiple times a day now. Gasping for breath and not finding any. My vision goes through tunnels and my hearing gets muffled, like my ears have been thrown into the trunk of a car. Short breath in and short breath out. My hands stay near my face–rubbing my eyes, popping my ears, covering my mouth. Still, drowning. Underwater.
I’m standing on an outcropping of rock overlooking a small waterfall in the middle of a forest in the middle of California, a half a country away from Oklahoma safety and clapboard churches and baptismal waters and Mom and Dad and Taylor and Avery and Brady and Grandma Sue’s prayers.
Nothing but the February wind biting my cheeks, the water splashing beneath me, and all of this drowning.
i lift up my eyes to the hills.
from where does my help come?5
I had my sale rack red swimsuit and Mom sat there with that towel. Dad’s camcorder was trained on me, documenting everything, it and the church’s eyes affixed on me.
God, are you watching? Is your camcorder focused on something more interesting?
I miss you. I miss the comfort and peace I felt with you—the feelings of confidence, of adventure, of going under the water knowing I would come up for air again.
At the very beginning of Genesis, at the very beginning of the world, it says there was chaos. It says that darkness was over the face of the deep. The world was without shape, just churning foam, formless drowning.
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.6
But God, you were there. You told the world to let light begin and then it did, the sutures of darkness split open and the world came up for air.
God are you still hovering? Because the chaos is teeming and churning and consorting inside my brain. The water keeps pouring down into the earth, and I keep pouring down with it.
Will you bring me out of the water, will you light up this soggy earth, will you light up this soggy mind?
I am underwater.
“However far a person advances upon the Way, all that he [or she] discovers is nothing else than the revelation…of baptismal grace.”
-Bishop Kallistos Ware7
Psalm 77:11-13 (ESV)
Psalm 22:4 (ESV)
Psalm 22:31 (ESV)
Genesis 1:7 (ESV)
Psalm 121:1 (ESV)
Genesis 1:2 (ESV)
The Orthodox Way, 109
Beautifully written, Drew! Can't wait to hold this book one day.
Wonderful!