Beauty in Baptism

Hi, how are you? Can I share a story with you?

On September 24, 2018, I made my faith public, declared that Jesus is my Lord and was baptized with the help of my best friend. Let me share with you the reason behind my baptism.

Before I begin, I’m not going to dive into the reason why baptism is so important for Christians, but if you are curious, please read about it here. This is the story about why I waited until now to be baptized.

Within the last year, I’ve been able to add to my testimony and all those detailed stories can be found here. There’s so much that has happened that is now a part of my story about my faith in Jesus Christ. Don’t get me wrong, I faced many trials and hardships before all of this UW madness happened, but there was something about this last year that made things different.

You don’t really know how much you need Jesus, until you’ve hit a point of rock bottom. You don’t really realize that you lack control, until you’ve lost control. You don’t really know what trust in God means, until you’ve realized the only thing you can do is to put your trust in Him. You don’t really realize a lot of things until it has happened. That was my last year, one big realization through many tests of faith. If you kept up with this blog, you’d know that.

In the midst of a lot of pain and a lot of suffering, I was able to see the little lessons God wanted me to see. The more I learned about myself, the more I realized I need God. I can’t describe how far I am from perfect and God’s sense of humor points it out to me every day of my life, but I wish you could see the amount of change that has happened in me thus far because of the Holy Spirit. The change I’ve gone through has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God. That’s what you need to take away.

This baptism for me was about this transformation. This baptism for me was about putting to death my old self as I publically declared Jesus as my Lord. This was about putting to death the version of myself who lived sinfully as I went into the water and as I came back up I was made new with my identity in Christ alone.

I know this is coming off as cheesy, especially to the skeptic readers I have out there, but I can’t find the words to describe how precious and perfect this moment was. I don’t have the words to completely describe the beauty in baptism.

So now what? Well, now that I’ve been baptized I keep going through life, living with the intention of representing Jesus well through all things. As I mentioned, there is a lot for me to work on, a lot, and I am waiting to see where God points next. In no way does this step in my faith somehow dismiss future trials and struggles, but as I face these hard times, I know I have my God, my Comforter, my Redeemer, my Living Hope, right beside me.

Hey God, it’s me. It’s Your daughter. I know life isn’t going to be easy, in fact, life isn’t easy right now, and You know that. But God, You love me more than I can imagine. You work all things for good even when I can’t see it. God, I trust You. Where You guide, I will go. Lord, Your will be done.