Spiritual Autobiography

Spiritual Autobiography
It was a cool Sunday morning in February in the year of our Lord and Savior, 1985, when I was born into this wicked sin-sick world. I believe I was destined to be important in God's church since I was almost born in the middle of the service. Nevertheless, my mother went into labor in the middle of the morning worship service at the Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. Other members thought she was catching the spirit of Jesus Christ, but in actuality, her water had broken, and I was on the way. My spiritual formation has been nurtured and developed at this church.
Being raised by a single parent and a strong Christian woman, my spiritual formation foundation started long before I reached Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church. My mother taught me who Jesus Christ is and what He means to us. She taught me the importance of praying before every meal, before I went to bed, and every morning I awoke to a new day. She would urge me to read the 121st number of the Psalms every time we traveled. Sadly my mother became a drug addict. However, she made sure her children went to church. Even when she would not go to church because she worked the night shift and was too tired, she ensured that I was in the building.
My early childhood at the Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church started in children's Sunday School. At that time, there was no such thing as a children's church, and this was the closest thing we had relevant to kids. So every Sunday morning, Deacon O.L Lattin would call the house at 8:30 am like clockwork and ask my mother if I was going to Sunday School. Deacon Lattin drove the Sunday School bus around the area to pick up the children attending Sunday School. In Sunday School, I started reading the Bible, memorizing easy scriptures, and learning biblical narratives. In addition, Sunday School taught me the importance of tithing and what it means to tithe. Then, during the summer months, my Pastor decided to help parents out by hosting a Vacation Bible School during the day to give us something productive to keep us out of trouble. The Vacation Bible School also served to help parents financially as they did not have to pay for a daycare bill.
It was the summer of 1995 in Vacation Bible School where we had to endure a mini-sermon from one of the preachers of the church that I made the best decision of my life by giving Rev. Ernest Hines my hand and Jesus Christ my heart and accepting Christ in my life. The following Sunday, July 2, 1995, my Pastor, Rev. Haywood Wiggins, baptized me in a non-heated baptismal pool. In that pool, he dipped me twice, fully submerged. I still do not know why he dipped me twice, but he did.
Dr. Wiggins pastored the Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church for almost 37 years. Watching him as I was growing up, he was well-loved by th...