“Come away, little lamb, come away to the water,”
said My Lord to me ten years ago.
I accepted Christ like most other children: by asking my parents how I could become apart of the family that they so highly spoke of…the eternal family.
I prayed the prayer. I sang the songs. I went to all the church camps and mission trips that I thought were necessary since I was a Christian. But I never got baptized.
Maybe it was because I jumped around to different churches to follow my friends; or maybe it was because I traveled from state to state during college. Whatever it was, my focus turned from being about God’s will for my life to how I thought I should live day-by-day.
At the beginning of my Race, the church we were working with in Ecuador held a baptism. This was God kindly placing that thought in the forefront of my mind at the start of my very significant year.
Since that baptism in Ecuador, I prayed that God would provide a place and a time when He thought it would be right for my life to finally become anew.
South America came and went.
Europe came and went.
The thought and prayer to be baptized had almost become obsolete until Africa.
In Africa, I sought and found my identity. (Matt. 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find…”) I went from seeing myself as someone trying to make a dent in the world to seeing myself through the eyes of Christ.
He saw me as beautiful.
He saw me as royalty.
He saw me as HIS!
Finally I walked with the freedom that He created me to have. And now with my newfound freedom that I embraced, I knew God was calling me to express it outwardly.
This past weekend was my birthday. I turned 23!
Not only did I celebrate 23 years on earth, but I also celebrated my outward expression of my inward faith.
