I'm never really quite sure what to do when I arrive to pick Ella up from school and her teacher immediately gets up to come over to see me. My heart leaps up into my throat as I wait to hear whether she is sharing good news about Ella's day or bad.Today, I arrived at Vanderbilt to get Ella, and Ms. Allison jumps up from her place with the kids on the floor and comes over to see me. "You'll never believe what Ella did today," she exclaims. It seems that before their afternoon group time, the children had a little free time. Ms. Allison turned around to see Ella and a friend, Jerry talking with one another. Jerry was lying on the floor completely straight and Ella was saying to him, "That's how you get baptized Jerry, you're a Christian now." It seems that Ella was baptizing her classmates! I asked her later if Jerry wanted to be baptized, and she said, "No, I just baptized him."
For a while now, Ella has had a slight obsession with baptism. She often baptizes herself and her dolls during bathtime and sometimes even asks me to baptize her (I'm not sure what to do with that request since I am ordained, and she has already been baptized). This coupled with a strong tendency that she has for making up songs about God, church and Jesus, her love for reciting the Apostles Creed, and her recent practice of preaching from any one of daddy's many "Jesus Books" found in his office makes me wonder if we are seeing Ella's vocation in action.
And, did I mention that she told us today that our neighbors weren't Christians because they weren't keeping the same Lenten fast that we are? What are we going to do with this girl??
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