My bApTiSm!

I "took the plunge" and got baptized on my birthday last Sunday! It has been such a long process of arriving at a place where I truly, in the bottom of my heart, desired to do this and understood the meaning behind it.

A bit of background: I was "baptized" as an infant and had always believed that I had fulfilled Christ's command to be baptized by having that completed for me before I could even talk. The stigma of being "re-baptized" just sounded plain awful so I put the issue in that box of your heart where you put all the issues you are just not sure how to sort out :-)I told God that if I had not followed his command or if my heart was in the wrong place, He was going to have to change both my mind and heart in order for me to stand before anyone and be baptized.

Many people encouraged me to think about it and, being a people pleaser, you would think I would have jumped at the chance to do something that would make others around me proud! But I resisted and dealt with the puzzled looks I got and just kept going back to the Lord with "Change me if I'm wrong".

And He did :-)God is soooo patient and so good to be willing to offer me a sign or a special moment that is only from Him so that I can have more confidence in my decisions. I love Him even more for that willingness on His part to give me more when I need it.

So here's the "God story" on my baptism:

A friend of mine and I were talking one Sunday about baptism and it really concerned her that I was not baptized 1)after placing my faith in Christ and 2) by immersion. She emailed me a list of examples from the Bible that showed that all baptisms in the new testament were by immersion and after faith and that the purpose of immersion is to experience symbolically what has already taken place spiritually at the time that you are saved.

I emailed her back and thanked her for sending me the info, but that I was not yet persuaded that I needed to do this.

Fast forward a few days. I am in bed reading through the book of Romans not looking for anything in particular, but I get to Romans chapter 6 and start to read it differently than I ever had before.

"1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace."

I started to see how going under the water symbolizes what happened spiritually when I was "buried with Him into death" and that coming out of the water symbolizes "being raised from the dead, so that we too can live a new life".

I got chills thinking that I could read a passage of scripture I've read hundreds of times before and have it be totally new to me that night. I glanced over my shoulder to see if Greg was still awake. He was fast asleep and I was relieved- I was for the first time considering how cool it would be to be baptized and I was too afraid to tell him yet. I knew once I told him I would want to go through w/ it and I wasn't 100% yet.

If you are baptized at my church, they encourage you to pick a verse from scripture that is meaningful for you to proclaim on your big day. So as I finished reading Romans 6, I started wondering what verse I would pick if I were to be baptized there. I went to 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone; the new has come!" Seemed fitting and it came from one of my favorite passages.

The next morning we went to church and right there in the bulletin was the announcement that the next day available to get baptized during the church service was Sunday, February 1st...my birthday! I had asked God to make it "a big deal" day if I were to get baptized and I consider having it on your birthday a very big celebration :-) After all, that's the anniversary of the day that my earthly life began. So why not celebrate both in one day? Once again, chills. By this point I knew that God was being "the Hound of Heaven" and that He was truly speaking to me and asking me to trust Him with this. But still, I was fearful. Fearful of standing up in front of so many people, fearful of what people would think about it taking me 13 years after I became a Christian to realize that I hadn't been baptized, fearful of what my family would think. So I kept silent.

That night we were at our once a month prayer & worship night. Every time so far it had been only prayer and worship - no meditation on scripture. But that night our worship leader had decided that he would create a sheet with some passages on it and some reflection questions. Right there on the sheet were Romans 6 and 2 Corinthians 5:17. I teared up and grabbed Greg's hand and we went in another room where I could share that the Lord had unquestionably spoken that it was my time to do this. I was so happy and relieved that I had finally heard from Him! That it wasn't man or fear that drove me to it but my Savior!

So on Sunday, February 1st, I shared my testimony and was baptized. :-) My voice did not shake as I shared and I was all smiles all day long. I can't say that I "feel" differently from having been baptized. Except to know the joy that has come from obedience and courage to do something the Lord called me to. It was awesome and I will always remember it.