I got baptized when I was in 8th grade. I loved Jesus, I was all about going to Heaven, and I wanted everyone to know it. I did the whole True Love Waits thing. I went to youth on Wednesdays, spring break mission trips, Disciple Nows, and week-long summer camps. And it was great, until I dipped my toes into the colder side of the Jesus pool.
I’ve always had a mind of my own, so I wouldn’t say that others influenced me to make some of my less than awesome choices. It was because of my own stubborness that I began to view Christianity as the hop-skotch game of “2 feet in, 1 foot in”. I didn’t like being told what to do. I wanted to make my own choices, so naturally I felt that God wanted to take all of the fun out of my life and give me zero freedom of choice.
Because of this mind-set, college became a life of fence-sitting for me. I hoisted up on a pretty little white picket fence, legs dangling on each side, dipping my toes into whichever pool felt best that day. I was in Aggie Sisters for Christ, but I still wanted to do what I wanted to do. I showed up to meetings, Bible studies, and formals; I said all of the right things at all of the right times, but I didn’t always live out what I was saying. My mouth and my heart were living in two different worlds. I thought that if I truly committed everything to Jesus, I would end up losing out on so many “things” in life. I was clinging so tightly to my own desires that there was no room left in my hands to receive what the Lord was trying to do within me.
At some point, during the course of this year, I decided to say screw toe-dipping. I decided that being stuck sitting on a fence getting only my toes wet was actually really dumb, when I could be running full force and cannonballing into a life of abundance. So, a few days ago, I got baptized…again.
A few days before I got baptized, my team prophesied over me. Emily explained a vision of a cave with light piercing down through the darkness. I planned to get baptized on the beach while we were on our canoeing trip, but amazingly enough, we ended up in a cave that was exactly what she had described. There was an opening at the top surrounded by trees with light streaming down into the darkness. So, I jumped out of my canoe, knee-deep in mud, and had Micah baptize me in the middle of the cave, encircled by my sweet sisters in canoes. Slightly random, but AWESOME.
This time, it was a covenant with the Lord. A covenant that I’m done living a lukewarm life. A covenant to live a life of pursuing Him with the entirety of my restored heart. A covenant to committ eveything within me to furthering His Kingdom. To say yes when others are saying no. To believe when others doubt. To persist when others fall away. I’m no longer naive as to what God might ask me to do, now I’m just willing to cannonball (gracefully of course) into whatever that might mean. 🙂
p.s. this picture is really awesome so I had to post it! The water is sick, trust me… I know.
