My Story.

I got baptized last night. For many of you who have known me for awhile, this may come as a surprise, so let me explain. When I was a child, around 9 years old I think, I made a decision at Vacation Bible School to "accept Jesus as my personal savior". I don't remember much about it to be honest, other than my sister and I made the decision at the same time, and I remember her swimming her way out of the baptistry as a 6 year old. There is probably a VHS tape floating around somewhere with proof of that, but as a kid, that's what stood out to me. My parents could probably tell you every detail, but I honestly don't remember much about it.

Growing up, I was never really a bad kid. I stayed out of trouble and was probably what a lot of people would call a "goodie goodie." I think it was in some ways hard for me to relate to being a sinner because I didn't do really bad things. I was also a preachers kid, which looking back for whatever reason I feel, it put a lot of pressure on me to look like I was doing all of the right things. I knew a lot about the bible. I knew all the correct answers to the questions. I did a lot of things for Jesus, especially through high school and college. I would say that I knew Jesus and over time began to understand what a relationship with Him meant, and I honestly believe if my time had come, I probably would have gone to be with Him. But there's more to the story.

After college, things started to get a little rocky for me and I began to put up these walls between myself and God. My life suddenly started falling apart when things didn't quite go the way I thought they were supposed to in multiple areas of my life. For the past 8 or so years I have lived with a lot of doubt and fear in my heart. Doubts about whether or not God cared about me, whether he was listening to my prayers, fears and insecurities about myself and what other people thought about me, and fears of the unknown, fears of what could happen if I didn't attempt to control situations around me as much as possible.

When I look back, I realize that it was all lies. I think a lot of times Satan takes people that he sees can make a huge impact for the kingdom of God and begins to lie to them. He tells them things like you're not good enough, your life is too messed up, God's not really there for you, you have too many problems, people don't like you, you're this, you're that. That's what he did to me. I listened. I listened for 8 years. Because of that, I got caught up in bitterness, anger, fear, anxiety, all sins that put a wall between me and God. You may have not seen it, because most of it was on the inside and growing up in the church, as terrible as this sounds, you learn to fake the "Christian" look. Everything looks okay on the outside, but on the inside, yeah not so much. I'm thankful now to have community where I don't have to live like that anymore.

I am also very thankful for a process/program/bible study (I don't even know what to call it) that I started about 6 months ago called The Journey. I'll be completely honest, when I was presented with it, no part of me wanted to do it. Why would I want to give 9 months of my life to intense daily study of the word, journaling, long prayer walks, and group meetings with people I didn't know? Where I was in my life at that point, that sounded terrible! But for whatever reason, I gave into peer pressure and did it.

It has completely changed my life. In the first few weeks, I realized how those sins of bitterness and anger were controlling my life and how I needed to confess that and get rid of it. So I not only confessed it to the Lord, but to the girls in my Journey group. From there we learned who God was, how much he cared for us, and how he was able to do the impossible in our lives. The biggest part for me was learning to abide with Christ. I have always been one to read my bible occasionally and pray somewhat consistently, but abiding with Christ I didn't really understand. I guess I thought I was doing that already, but in reality had no clue.

Abiding is when you have a deep intimacy with Christ. You spend consistent time with him in the word and in prayer. By consistent, I mean everyday. By everyday, I mean every single day and not just I'm going to read a quick verse, say and quick prayer and I'm done. Abiding is when you take the scripture, read it, meditate on it, apply it to your life, and then take action on it. In our journey group we do this through journaling. We write the scripture, write our thoughts about it, write how to apply it to our lives, and then respond to the Lord on how he's calling us to live it out. Abiding is also when you pray consistently, not just in the morning or before bed, or when you need something from God. Consistently. Throughout the day. About everything. This has changed my life.

The Holy Spirit has also changed my life. Until recently, I haven't fully understood the Holy Spirit and who he was and what he was capable of doing. I don't know if that's because He wasn't clearly explained to me growing up, if I didn't see Him working, or if I saw Him in other's lives and heard Him speak to me, but questioned whether or not that's what I really hearing. I can say that I now 100% know what his voice sounds like and I don't want to miss anything He has to tell me. Guys, he is real and He is powerful and if you don't know His voice I would challenge you to research scripture to find out about Him, because the bible promises that His power is given to all of us who believe in Jesus. He lives inside of us.

I could go on about the other things I've learned, but you'd be reading for days. So let's go back to what I was originally going to explain, my baptism last night. This week the Holy Spirit has continuously put baptism on my heart through situations, through hearing testimony of friends, and even a story on the radio that was similar to mine. The bible study I do with a group of friends every Thursday that's called "Lies Women Believe" was even entitled, "I know my child is a Christian because he prayed to receive Christ at an early age." It talked about how salvation is not a matter of profession or performance, but of transformation, as 2 Corinthians says, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." And also, Colossians 1:13, "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves."

I realized that as a child, I don't remember that transformation. I feel like I knew about it, what it was supposed to "feel" like, but I never experienced it. And as I sat in church Sunday and listened to my friend Debra, explain how she wrestled with doubts and fears about her salvation and had to come to a place when she put a stake in the ground and said something to the effect of, "This is it. This is the day that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus has rescued me from sin and death and I want to tell the world and not question it anymore." I realized that is what I needed to do too! I get it now. I've seen how sin in my life has nearly destroyed me, where as when I was a kid, I didn't really get that. I see a transformation that has occurred in my life over the past few months and I want people to know that I am not the same person I have been over the past 8 years. I wanted freedom in knowing that I am changed and I don't have to fake it anymore.

Yes, I fought with the idea of being baptized again, because I was baptized as a child and I've always believed and been taught that's something you only need to do once in your life. I have even questioned in the past why people would get baptized again, because I was taught that you show people one time when you make your "profession of faith" and that's it. I fought with how my husband would respond, or what my family would think. But when it came down to it, I knew that's what the Holy Spirit was leading me to do, so I did it and I feel amazing peace from that outward expression of surrender!

So, I want to challenge the rest of you to take a look at where you are with the Lord. I have seen Him bring me from a very dark place to a place of peace and restoration where I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is real and I am His. Some of you wrestle with that as well. Some of you wrestle with lies from the enemy. Some of you know Him, but need that abiding relationship with Christ, and some of you need to ask the Holy Spirit to be real and alive in your life. Wherever you are, I pray that the presence of God will overwhelm you today and you will know His love and his realness and that you will make the decision to surrender to whatever the Spirit leads you to do. It may be getting rid of a sin you have been struggling with, coming to know and accept Christ for the first time, or just surrendering to His leadership in your life.

One of the great things for me, was being able to do this with one of my best friends, Holly, and one of the girls from my Journey group, Lu! Being able to stand there with one of your closet friends and one of the girls you're shared your heart with for the past 6 months, and say we're not playing games anymore. This is real life and we're tired or riding the fence. It's all or nothing. August 23, 2015 is our day to make this real. That's real life. That's friendship. That's what being the church is about.