Esther Baker had given up everything to become a Buddhist nun. For seven years, she survived on little sleep and food, engaging in ascetic practices to detach from earthly things.
That is, until one day when Baker began to question her faith so greatly that she ran from the monastery to the local Anglican church.
“Upon entering, I looked around anxiously for the priest,” Baker writes in a recent CT article. “‘Could you pray for me, please?’ I asked when I spotted him. ‘I’m very confused.’ Unfazed, he graciously guided me to the Holy Communion rail and asked me to kneel. He laid his hands on my shoulders and prayed. As he did so, I broke down sobbing uncontrollably.”
Baker and the priest met a few days later. He read to her from the book of John. A week later, Baker disrobed. Not long after that, she left the Buddhist temple. Now, years later, Baker leads a discipleship and inner healing ministry to Thai Christians, most of whom come from a Buddhist background.
“What a profound apprenticeship God had given me by allowing me to delve so deeply into Thai Buddhism,” Baker writes.
May we, like Baker, remember that we serve a God who saves and redeems. In him, not a single moment is lost.
