[[[Written January 27, 2014]]]
Today I was re-baptized, and it was absolutely beautiful and awesome.
The first time Jesus came into my heart I was a 13 year old writing my suicide note. I had been praying for Him to come into my heart because I knew He was the only one who could save me from myself and my depression. It wasn’t until I sat down to write my goodbye letter that everything changed. In a moment, I had put down the pen and walked away because He finally showed up and I felt Him.
It wasn’t until seven years later when I was a junior in college that I actually gave my whole heart and life over to Christ. Since then, it’s been a beautiful uphill battle pursuing the Lord.
Before coming on the Race I walked away from a lot of things. I walked away from my past and who I was, ready to be redefined in who Christ wanted me to be. Knowing a lot was going to happen this upcoming year, I knew I wanted to be re-baptized.
When I was younger I was baptized alongside my brother, declaring that I was a child of the mighty God. But after seeing what it actually looks like to be a daughter of Christ I wanted to be baptized again. A visible choice to rededicate myself to Him in understanding of what it looks like to give my life over to the King.
But every time I prayed about it, God never gave me a month number or country. So I waited, knowing He’d reveal it to me when it was time. Then at South Africa (Month One) debrief I felt chains breaking off and like I was being washed clean. I felt pure as I let go of things from my past. I prayed, “Lord all that’s left is declaring in action, my baptism.” Immediately He gave me “Malaysia” in bright white letters behind my closed eyes. Malaysia it was.
During this entire month I prayed and prayed, asking God to tell me where, when, and who. He gave me nothing. Nada. No direction, no hints, nothing. So I waited, not understanding why He wasn’t telling me what He wanted.
But that in itself was beautiful.
Last week I struggled with my steadfast faith and obedience. If you know me, you know that when God tells me to do something, I obey without question. My faith is completely trusting. But suddenly I was confused, frustrated, annoyed, and hurting. I suddenly felt that my obedience meant that I had no say, no choice in anything. When God told me something, I obeyed and it was a show of my faith – yes. But where was my choice? Where was my say in the matter? I was angry at God.
Then one night I was praying over my baptism again and God just revealed to me that He hadn’t told me anything about it. He told me Malaysia, but that was it. He wanted it to be my choice. He wanted me to choose who was going to do it, where it would be, and when. I smiled as I put together pieces to form what I knew would be the perfect moment for the Lord.
Fast forward to the end of Month Five debrief in Malaysia. I gather my old teammates, my new teammates, and my brother David at 7:30am to take a train to the Petronas Towers to declare my faith in a very public way in a very public place. The whole time I was praying we wouldn’t be arrested.
As soon as we stepped out in front of the towers I saw security standing in front of where I wanted to be baptized. Immediately I become nervous, wondering if they were going to interrupt and yell at us. We kept walking in faith and walked past the guards to the back of the strip in front of the towers and down some steps. Welp, here we go.
David asks me to declare in front of my nine sisters why I am doing this, before stepping into ankle deep water. I share my story, and we step into the pool. Both of us quickly look around to see if anyone is watching – but there is absolutely no one around. The security guards we saw earlier are still at the opposite end of the strip and because we are down some steps, they can’t see us. I kneel into the water as David and I converse about the fact I don’t want to be dunked, just have him cup water. Jokes are made, he shares a word about my baptism, more jokes are made about how many cups of water I want poured on my head, and I am baptized!
David prays for me, I pump my fist in celebration, hug all my sisters, and migrate to take a picture of all of us in front of the towers.
As we migrate, I notice the guards have started walking over to us to see what we are up to, and I smile. God protected us from anyone else being around. He protected us from the guards curiosity about what we were doing. He just protected us, so that I could be baptized for His glory, in front of a huge tourist attraction, when there was absolutely no one there to interrupt.
God is so good!
