I’ve spent two months trying to process this revelation and write this blog. Forgive me for taking so long. This blog is probably more for me to externally process and remember what God is doing in my life but my journey is your journey and maybe someone out there can benefit or learn something from my own struggles and lessons learned. So… read on if you dare. And hey, thanks for following my journey.
I got baptized for the 5th time.
Now I may know what you may be thinking. “Jamilyn, FIVE baptisms?! That’s absolutely ridiculous. You only need to get baptized once.”
In Jesus’ day, it was actually Jewish tradition to get baptized multiple times, in different seasons and walks of life, to show new depths and commitment in your faith. They were markers, ebenezers, of things you had walked through. That’s what my baptisms are to me. They each show giant steps in my faith that I can look back on and see where God has taken me and how much I’ve grown in my commitment and love for Him.
And honestly I don’t need to convince you of anything! I’m not trying to convince you. Baptism, no baptism, multiple baptisms… they don’t equal salvation. It’s an outward representation of what’s happening inwardly and for me they are beautiful reminders and expressions of the transformation I’ve walked through since I was 11 years old.
Age 11- I got baptized with my whole family and friends watching by Ridge Burns at Forest Home Family Camp. I knew I needed Jesus in my life and I wanted to follow the Lord. I believed in Him. In all honesty, I chose to get baptized because my older brothers did it and I wanted what they had (or maybe I didn’t want them to have something I didn’t have).
Age 18- I had realized at this point that I had put my faith in what my parents and church had believed and this was when I felt like my faith was actually my own. I didn’t believe because of what people said, but because of my own experience with God. This was true commitment, moving past the religion aspect (works and deeds, doing the right thing) and stepping towards true relationship with God. I got baptized by my high school pastors with my home church family , Calvary Church of Santa Ana, at the beach.
Age 22- Summer of 2016 I decided to go on a missions trip with the college group at Calvary to Israel. This is where my pastor told me about the Jewish tradition of full immersion multiple times right before we had the opportunity to get baptized in the Jordan river. He talked about how immersion was used in that day to mark repentance, commitment, worship, and heart posture, and I knew over the past 4 years my faith had gone through change in all of those areas. I was no longer someone who had just made my faith my own, but I had walked through heartache and faith crisis and my commitment was deeper. My faith had action, speed, and a direction of a life of missions. I committed to being a disciple maker, kingdom builder, and world changer. My best friend Matt Davis baptized me in the Jordan River as my team confirmed and cheered me on.
Age 23- World Race Training Camp always ends with the invitation to get baptized. People were signed up and I videotaped and cheered them on but said no, I don’t need to get baptized because I got baptized last year and “I’m good.” They kept opening it up to anyone else who wanted to do it, saying they felt the Holy Spirit was telling them there is more. It kept going and going and I actually got annoyed cause I wanted to move on to the next event. I said “okay let me check in again with the Lord and see if He wants ME to get baptized,” knowing for sure that I was “good” and it was a no. I said “Lord, I don’t need to get baptized, I committed last year to be a disciple maker” and I remember clear as day Him saying back “But look at the year I just took you through.” Right after I had been baptized in Israel, I had spiraled into an severe suicidal depression where I had lost all hope in life and God. I gave up on Him because I felt He gave up on me. Training Camp was actually a season of healing, a marker that I call my “depression finish line” because God had pulled me out and rescued me. He had walked me through my darkest days ever, He had shown me He had never left me, and because I had been through hell and back, my faith was more rooted, deeper, richer than ever before. I SPRINTED to the inflatable pool and told the story of God’s redemption and restoration in my life through muffled sobs and that my faith, because of the last year I had been through, was so rooted that it could never and WOULD never be uprooted again. I was never letting Him go. I had reached a point of not just being a disciple maker but a bold, fearless, tired-of-the-status-quo-comfortable-Christianity, and was about to chase Love and give Love all over the world in the hardest most uncomfortable places.
Age 24 – This is where I explain to you the title of this blog.
The last week of my first term of G42 in Spain, my new friend Lonny Dyer came to speak. Looking back now, his week of messages was the culmination of all that I had been learning. God allowed the entire semester to build up to this point of me realizing something that turned my world upside down.
The biggest thing God highlighted on this week was my independence. I have claimed myself as an independent soul for a long, LONG time. Being the only girl in my family, head strong, wild, and a go-getter, many people described me as independent and I accepted that. I prided myself in going against the grain in high school, labeled myself independent from any man in college, and struggled on the world race to start thinking corporately as a team/squad rather than just for myself. I’ve been a nomad for many years- my friends settled down and got married and I again prided myself in my singleness and independence. God’s given me a huge passion for women and feminism (man honoring, Jesus loving feminism, don’t stereotype me ;)) and I ALWAYS thought I would be this single, strong, independent woman role model for young girls and empower them and teach them to also be the wild, go-getter that I was.
^^This woman walked into the first day of the Lonny’s class at G42 and learned something new. He put the words dependence, co-dependence, and independence on the board and started talking through their meanings and what they mean in our lives as followers of Christ.
Dependence. Yeah I got that. Relying completely on someone. Got it.
Lonny wrote the word WORRIER next to it. Not what you want.
Co-dependence. I know that one. When someone is addicted to something or someone in an unhealthy way.
Lonny wrote the words BLAMER/POLITICIAN next to it. Not what you want.
Independence. “That’s me.” I say proudly as I sit up higher.
Lonny wrote HERO next to it and my head lifted higher in pride. Not what you want.
Wait… what?
Definition: freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like from others.
Ouch. Actually sounds lonely.
Lonny continued the lesson with talking about the dangers of each. Independence kept being highlighted and my heart beat started to rise. Slowly but surely, this identity that I had labeled myself as for YEARS was being deconstructed before my very eyes. But I wasn’t being attacked, I was being guided into truth. It’s like God was using Lonny to gently pull away my false self and show me the true me.
Independence is when you do not need ANYONE. There was a time in my life when I really thought that. Angry at my parents, my family, my professors, and friends in my depression, I turned my back on them all and said “I don’t need you. I can do it myself.” Including God. Truth is? I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for them. I went through an angry feminist stage (stereotype added here) where changing a tire, mowing the lawn, chopping wood, carrying heavy things, tasks normally given to a man, was sought after and celebrated with the word “independent” attached to me.
This was a label, an identity, that I put on myself like a gold star on my name tag. And to watch Lonny deconstruct it before my very eyes, something I had put my identity in for so long, I felt like I myself was melting and being deconstructed. I collapsed in tears and felt like my world was falling apart. But what I felt was God taking away something of mine, was actually Him truly showing me how He created me; how He created us all.
We are all made in the image of God. God Himself is a relationship as the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I’ve been confused often with what “image of God” means. Like, does God have a head, face, eyes, nose and funny bone like us orrrrr does it have a more significant meaning? If God is a relationship and we are made in His image, then we are created to be in relationship too. Independence is the opposite of that.
AND HERE’S THE KICKER: Independence doesn’t exist.
Go back and read that sentence. You read it right. Independence doesn’t exist. There is no possible way for any human on earth ever to be completely independent. It is not how God designed us. He created us to be in relationship. Just think for a second how many things we are dependent on in a day: we are dependent on farmers to provide food, doctors to provide health care, electric companies for light, restaurants for meals, construction workers for roofs over our heads, or even our next door neighbors for that extra cup of sugar you don’t have to make brownies! None of how this world works is meant to do it alone. We can’t do anything by ourselves. That’s EXACTLY how God wants it. It forces us to look to each other and be in relationship! Imagine that!
(I even tested this theory by trying to rack my brain in order to find something I could do without anyone. Couldn’t do it. Try it. Example: I can take a drive and go shopping and get lunch by myself. There! Independent! FALSE. What about the people it took to build your car, or teach you to drive, or find oil, or the people that made the clothes you bought or the folks who work at Target, or the people who made your food or built the table you sit at… etc. etc. etc. You get the point. We can’t find one. We can’t even breath without that dang plant in our front yard. Wow.)
This realization brought me a flat hand to my forehead. **facepalm*** DUHH! Shoot, God how did I not see this before!? You created me to be in relationship, community, fellowship with your family on earth, all the while being in relationship with you!
Here is what I learned:
Independence is actually a really lonely place to be. It means I don’t need anyone and this “freedom” I’m proclaiming is actually isolation. No one is actually independent from anything… ever. What I had to come to grips with was that I had been described as independent and labeled myself that way for almost 25 years. Soooo… what am I?
I found that there are a lot of qualities I have that people put in the category of “independent” that I thought was independence but are actually separate. Qualities like confidence, bravery, exploration, uniqueness, boldness, strength, and fearlessness have all been put under independence. It doesn’t mean I’m not those things, it means I am a strong, bold, fearless woman of God who is created to be INTERDEPENDENT.
That was the fourth word Lonny wrote on the board. A new word for my vocabulary. It means mutually dependent; depending on one another. Just as each member of the Trinity depends on one another, we are to do the same. That’s family, that’s tribe, that’s what Christ’s CHURCH is supposed to be about. We are not meant to do life independently and come to a building once a week to hear a feel good message. We are meant to do life TOGETHER and to take those messages and apply them to our lives TOGETHER. Life as the church is living at the table, being a part of a family.
“They will know you are my disciples by the way you LOVE one another.” That is our mark! In a world that screams independence: “You do you! Do it on your own! Do what you want! You don’t need anyone!” A world of selfishness and “What can I do for ME?” WHAT IF we were the kind of church that was there for each other, constantly doing life with one another, mutually dependent?
And wow what a wonderful God we serve that He created us this way so that we are also dependent on Him. He LOVES when we can’t do things on our own! What kind of relationship with your Heavenly Father is that if you could do everything on your own? He created us with this innate desire to be dependent on Him, and to be interdependent on one another. In our weakness is His strength, that’s where He steps in.
The enemy has used my pursuance of independence to keep me from so many things:
- “I don’t need no man! I’m never getting married!” To keep me from the wonderful intimacy of knowing and doing life with a man of God that I have the pleasure of doing now. To keep me from the immense growth of becoming more humble, holy, giving, and gracious in a relationship with my boyfriend Taylor and pursuing Kingdom life together, becoming closer to God.
- “I don’t need my family!” To keep me from reconciliation and restoration. To push me toward bitterness, brokenness, and anger and to keep me from calling them when I wanted to kill myself. To push me towards death, literally.
- “I don’t need friends!” To keep me from being sharpened, loved, comforted, encouraged, lifted up, called out, cheered on, inspired, supported, prayed for, etc. etc. etc. on and on and on.
- “I don’t need a church family!” To keep me from growth, diving into worship and scripture, and letting my walls down to be truly loved by the body of Christ.
Independence is the most dangerous because it is celebrated in our culture. It is completely counter cultural to be inTERdependent on one another. While the world says to do things for myself and only think for myself, can I go against the grain and choose family and relationships, to choose to live WITH one another rather than just living for myself? The easier path is to think for myself, do everything on my own, to not have to depend on anyone. It would be much easier, I’ll admit. But if there is one thing I’ve learned in the past two years, it’s that following Jesus comes with a cost.
I have decided that I am not independent. I don’t want to have to do everything myself. It’s exhausting and isolating. We need people, we need relationship and community. We were LITERALLY CREATED to live that way! In the image of God. Wow. I cannot do this life without my family, my tribe, my friends, the body of Christ. I would not even be here doing G42 if it wasn’t for the body of Christ coming around me and supporting me prayerfully and financially. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my family being there for me in my darkest hour. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my friends calling me higher and calling out the woman of God in me.
SO, this is how I learned that “Miss Independent doesn’t exist.”
Me and my dear friend Grace decided at the beginning of the year to pray for one word from God that would be our word for the year. Grace felt her word was BOLD and she has been living that out incredibly well every day since then and God has been teaching her wonderful things.
The word He gave me was WITH (I can hear you laughing).
Every day since then has been me learning to do life WITH Him. To make plans with Him, go on adventures with Him, pray, sleep, eat, work out, dress, intercede, and hang out with Him! Every day there is a new depth to life WITH Jesus.
Here, I learned that He wants me to do life WITH others, for that is who I am and what I was created for. So, my 5th baptism was a big one. Shedding a false self of 25 years and stepping into deep, rich, and wonderful life WITH God and others. Lonny baptized me in front of my tribe in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, how poetic and prophetic. Out with the old system and in with the new. I am a new creation. This revelation has been 25 years coming and it’s finally here. Have I found my life message? Will I be preaching and living this out for the rest of my life? Who knows. One thing I do know is that I’m going to continue to do life with God and others.
Let’s do life together, child of God who is made in His image. Let’s lean on one another, be there for one another, and be the church.
All my love,
Miss Interdependent
