My heart was pounding as I sat on the balcony overlooking the mountains of Montenegro. With the sun setting and the breeze blowing lightly through the air, I could smell the sweet aroma from the roses that grew in our neighbors garden. I had been thinking about getting re-baptized for awhile now. The music coming from my headphones was drowning out all the other noises around me.
The previous day I had felt the Lord impressing on me that it was time, it was time to be all in. I viewed baptism as an outward expression of an inward love and change, kind of like a marriage ceremony. I had fallen in love with the Lord again, and He had healed so much in me, making me clean and pure, and He wanted me to be His bride, to make a commitment, for better or for worse, to always love Him.
So the plan was put into motion and I asked two of my close friends to baptize me the next evening during our beach worship, and I planned for it to be video recorded and photographed, since it would be during sunset the lighting would be perfect. I was going to be surrounded by most of my squad, perfect time to explain what God was doing in me.
But as the evening drew near, I started feeling more and more anxious and nervous, terrified at the thought of commitment, clearly still carrying wounds from all I had ever seen of “marriage.”
I am not ready for this kind of commitment.
Lord, I still have a lot of things inside myself to work on.
I am not good enough to be your bride.
Remember what happened last time Lord?
And there I was… almost ten years ago to the day, standing in the baptismal tank before my church, my class in their choir robes singing Humble Cross as my youth pastor was praying over me.
I had been one of the last youth in my church to accept baptism, refusing to do it just because I was the “appropriate age” and it was “strongly encouraged” by my school and church, waiting until I thought I was ready.
In my mind, I thought the second I was immersed under the water that everything would just disappear… that everything I had ever done or experienced would be wiped clean… that I would come out of the water stronger than ever, a completely new person. The past erased, a fresh start.
I was doing it because I thought it was what I had to do to be worthy. I had the mentality that the deeds and acts of a “good Christian” was what would bring me closer to God.
You can imagine my surprise when I emerged from the water to realize that I was still human, that my wounds were still there, and that my life didn’t automatically start over. That very night I was lying to my mom, staying at a friends, and fooling around with a boy from school that I liked.
So needless to say, when the evening in Montenegro arrived, I panicked. Like a scene from the movie Runaway Bride, I mentally ran away by locking myself in my room, and making up my mind that I was not going, not to worship, not to be baptized, and looking over my shoulder and staring into my fiancés sad eyes as I rode away.
I sat on the balcony, feeling so incredibly conflicted.
Lord, I don’t understand why you would want someone like me. I feel like I have done nothing but let you down my entire life. I know what I am told, I know what to believe, but I cannot wrap my mind around how, after everything I have done, you could still love me so much. You have brought me so incredibly far, but I am still not enough yet, I am still working on myself. If I cannot commit to the perfect being that you are, how can I commit to an imperfect one?
For a week after I struggled, which only pushed me further into the word and the truths He was speaking into my life. I knew the truth, but I was still letting fear have a place in my heart. God was using this time to transfer what I knew in my head, into my heart.
Then something incredible happened, I started seeking a different side of God, one that was my husband. I started seeing Him as someone I could openly talk to about anything, I could be intimate with, I could go on adventures with, laugh and have fun with, someone who saw the best in me and could love me despite my past, someone who inspired me, someone who challenged me, someone who I knew would be there by my side through anything… and it completely transformed our relationship.
So the day came that we had a Beauty for Ashes retreat.
Pure. Washed Clean. Loved. Seen. Forgiven. Then the lyrics reaching my ears…
“Now your making me like you, clothing me in white, bringing beauty from ashes, for You will have Your bride, free of all her guilt, and rid of all her shame, and known by her true name.”
My heart was on fire. It was no longer just in my mind, I believed that I was worthy, not because of anything I could ever do, but because He lived within me. I am an imperfect person, but I was worth it… I was worth it to Him.
Then came the night, right before we left Montenegro, where the the brilliant idea was formed for us girls to go skinny dipping in the sea late at night on a remote part of the beach where no one would be.
After some persuasion, there I was, fully committed, adrenaline pumping, clothes in the sand and running with a girl friend right past the other girls and diving into the water.
Soon everyone was in the water, splashing around, swimming, laughing, completely free. The thought had already been brought up earlier, but then one of the girls I had asked to baptize me a few weeks prior came up and said, “What if you got baptized now?” I laughed, the idea was totally unorthodox! Completely different and not by the books! She laughed, “Thats the point, it’s totally you!”
I swam out on my own to think about it for a awhile. As I was floating by myself in the dark, I was looking up at the stars and the moon, listening to the sound of the waves, completely in awe of the breathtaking beauty that surrounded me, feeling totally at peace while floating bare in the Adriatic Sea.
I closed my eyes, overwhelmed with how well the Lord knew my heart, and whispered this is perfect. He didn’t need a show, He didn’t need the cameras around, He didn’t need me to have it all figured out, He didn’t need me to be perfect, He didn’t need it to be traditional, He just wanted me… exactly how I was. I didn’t need to earn His love, He already loved me.
So there I was, completely bare before the Lord, physically and emotionally. I stood before Him, naked and unashamed, in a place that held so much symbolism for us, in the dark water, under the glow of the moon and stars, and I was baptized.
I have to think that God smiled down from heaven, laughing with us that night, as His daughters dived into His creation in their purest forms, full of joy and freedom. Maybe to some it was an imperfect moment, but it was perfect for me and Him, and thats all that mattered. My God doesn’t live in a box.
My life is not my own, and I want the whole world to know the love of God, and I may not know what the future holds, but I trust the person leading me. It’s taken awhile, but the focus is shifting… from inward to out. I wouldn’t change anything that I have been through, because now I get to relate to a broader spectrum of people, I get to point to the worst parts of my life and say, “See, look what Jesus did!”
I don’t speak by what I have been taught or read about, I speak by experience, I speak by what I know to be true, and I believe in the power of His love, I believe in His goodness, I believe in His freedom, and I believe that He is right there, holding out His hand, just waiting for you to reach out and grasp it.
