My four-year-old daughter folds and stuffs the golden yellow washcloth in the drain, just right, the way she’s seen me do every night since a piece of rubber broke off the plug, and we never bought a new one. She asks again why I don’t need the turquoise bath mat. I tell her I’ve taken a lot of baths in my life and when she’s a little older, she can skip the mat, too.

“How old are you again, Mama?”

“I’m thirty-eight.”

In her high-pitched, pretend mama voice she says, “Oooh, you’re growing up so fast.”

We glance at each other and smile.

She dips and drags her fingers along the surface to test the temperature and tells me it’s okay to get in now. My naked body is stiff and the edge of the tub feels like ice, but as I submerge into the heat, I let my hair and shoulders down. She reaches for the plastic whale rinsing cup, scoops up the warm water, and pours it over my head. It’s an invitation not only to ditch the dry shampoo but also the dirt that’s been clogging up my heart.

“Is the water okay, Mama?” she asks with genuine concern.

“It’s perfect,” I tell her.

***

My daughter was two the first time she gave me a bath. We had only been home from China—where we became a family of three—for a few months. I hadn’t been in the bathroom by myself—let alone sunk into a luxurious tub of lavender bubbles—since becoming a mama. In fact, I had barely taken a second away from her. I was afraid to.

While our sweet girl was braving a new home, a new love, new everything, I was braving motherhood for the first time, and it was not what I had expected.

It had been mere months since my husband and I stepped off the elevator to the lobby of a high-rise hotel in Eastern China and saw our daughter for the first time, wrapped in a soft, pink blanket, sleeping unknowingly while another woman held her.

Mere months since they coaxed her to come to me. “Go to Mama. That’s Mama.” Our smart girl, scanning the room, cautiously taking inventory of eager strangers.

Mere months since they placed her in my arms, despite her physical plea to stay with mamas she knew. Despite her panic and screams, I held my daughter for the first time, as they darted toward the door, out of love.

Mere months since I tightly held, rocked, and sang to our frightened baby for five hours—pressing her silky dark hair to my face—before she gave into exhaustion and slept.

Mere months since that second day of knowing each other when she nestled into my husband’s arms and didn’t want to return to mine.

And so, after weeks of never leaving my daughter’s side, I gave in to what I really needed. I snuck into the bathroom alone and hesitantly closed the door. I filled the tub, crumpled up my black sweat pants and worn-out t-shirt on the floor, and climbed in.

I’d forgotten the simple pleasures of warm water and solitude. I’d forgotten I was whole and good without a baby in my arms. As I leaned all the way back and immersed my bruised heart into healing water, I felt the urge to let go of all I’d been grasping at. The false defeat. The nagging fears I faced as a new mom and was trying so hard to fight.

Slowly, all of the grime and lies began to dissolve in the tub. My heart, scrubbed clean.

Not two minutes later, the sliding door rattled and creaked open. My sweet baby girl toddled around the corner and found me. Mama was in the bathtub. Mama was in the bathtub?! I tried to explain that she could go. “Go find Dada. He’s out there.”

But wonder took hold of her. She wanted to stay. At first, I was a little annoyed. I was finally doing something for myself! But as she reached through the bubbles, collecting her squirting sea creatures, my irritation quickly dovetailed into delight.

“Mama, here?”

Her blue dolphin. A peace offering for the interruption.

She stretched her still squishy hand toward the damp washcloth hanging over the faucet and dunked it near my toes, then brought it toward my chest. She picked up her yellow plastic stacking cup, scooping and pouring warm bits of relief over my arms. Curiosity and care swirled together as she knelt on the fluffy rug, leaning her chubby arms over the white ceramic ledge, dripping water over my knees, over and over again.

That was the first time my daughter gave me a bath.

And now, almost five years later, every now and then, it’s something we do. But it’s become more than a bath.

***

I was one when my dad dunked my head in the tub, called upon the Holy Spirit and boom, I was baptized in the bath. No church. No witnesses. No celebration. Just a few seconds with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and there you have it, a bubbly baptism before bedtime.

I was born into a family of mixed religions, at the time. That’s my guess as to why it went down the way it did, instead of a more traditional chain of events. Nonetheless, I believe I was first baptized in that bathtub in the early ‘80s.

I also believe in flowery, flowing dresses and heels standing next to collared shirts and shined shoes, handing babies over to priests or pastors for the traditional scoop out of the baptismal font and a few drops and a couple crosses painted on foreheads. I believe in teenagers and twenty-somethings in board shorts and tankinis taking a break from cliff-jumping into a freezing river at church camp to make a public proclamation while their friends sit on the boulders above, clapping and cheering after each holy plunge in the creek.

I think God smiles down on all sorts of baptisms. But I think what He really craves is for us to keep coming back after the initial drips or dunks. To keep coming back, wanting to be washed clean. Again and again. Recognizing we are filth without Him.

***

It used to feel silly when my four-year old filled up the tub for me. Now, it feels sacred.

For her, it’s fun. For me, it’s a ritual. The scooping, sprinkling, and pouring of water from an overflowing cup.

Naked and vulnerable.

It feels like going to church in my tub. The kind of church tired mamas need when we catch ourselves trying too hard. Aching for the wrong kind of validation. Forgetting we are loved and cared for even more than we love and care for our babies.

I soak in the warmth of these precious minutes where we pass the baton, and I can rest in the aftermath of a miracle, the beautiful motherhood He’s entrusted to me.

When I witness my sweet girl displaying the same love we’ve given her. When she sheds shyness the rest of the world sees and steps into confidence, as she kneels on the bathroom floor. When I let that desperation for her love sink to the bottom of the tub and get sucked down the broken drain.

I am washed clean.

I am born again.

I can start new.

Bathtime baptisms. What a sweet, silly thing. What a surprisingly beautiful gift.

Guest essay written by Becky Morquecho. Becky is a wife to Jesse (yes, just like Full House), an adoptive mama, an adventurer and the host of the We Are Free podcast. She loves fuchsia bougainvilleas, Mediterranean salads and swinging in the hammock under the oak tree. She believes there is beauty and goodness just waiting to be discovered and writes about it often.

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