This is my Baptism story from October 5th, 2014. At our church, we read our stories out loud in front of the congregation before we get baptized. For years I kept saying, “I don’t want to get up front. I’m too shy.” I decided not to use that excuse anymore. I read my story and made it through with confidence. I feared I would break down and had my husband sitting alongside me, but I made it through with joy and excitement.
Here is my story!
The journey started 10.5.09, and I call that “Day One”.
Surrendered.
Baptized 10.5.14, five years to the day. I turn 40 in two days. What an awesome birthday year!
{PS:I wore my workout pants that were with me from the start. A bit sentimental, but just a token of the changes!}
My Story:
I accepted Christ in my heart at the age of seven at Faith Missionary Church in Indy, but as a classic type-A personality, my bend my entire life is to operate as someone who insisted on living daily according to my own agenda. Every time a call for Baptism was made, I always came up with a huge host of excuses of why I could not participate, such as I claimed to be way too shy to be in front of a large congregation to publicly share my story. But in 2013 I started competing in the Figure division of Bodybuilding and when the Baptism topic came up in this sermon series, God prodded at me and said, “So, in a competition you can walk on stage in front of hundreds of people, but you say you are too shy to get up front and share your story at church? That is just an excuse, Mindy!”
He got me ……so here I am!
Five years ago today, I had my fourth child and brought him home two days later from the hospital on my 35th birthday. I had four little ones ages six and under and to say I was overwhelmed was an understatement. Type-A, perfectionist me tried to kick in all my old ways and I slowly realized I could no longer keep all my plates spinning at once. God granted me my life dream to be a wife and mother, but I was overwhelmed, depressed, spiritually empty, sugar addicted and had reached an all-time high at 100 pounds heavier than I had been in high school. According to MY planned projection, this was not how I saw it all panning out!
Since I seemed to let myself down for not keeping to “the plan”, I failed to see my life purpose and struggled daily to find value in the roles He had me in at the time. I can see now that my perfectionism then was the source of my long-time frustration and was driving me way off God’s course, ultimately keeping me from realizing my true value as a purposeful child of God.
As I transitioned into marriage, a few careers, and motherhood, I had gotten into the habit of failing to take care of all parts me, therefore losing connection with God and my ability to listen to His will on my life. As I looked in the mirror and into my heart, I did not recognize the person I had become and I knew something had to change. Reflecting back, I consider that 35th Birthday as my “Day One”, the moment I went after a personal revamp. I was on a mission to go get me back, to lay old ways aside, and I worked slowly to set up a new lifestyle across the board. I now know God had better plans for me than the ones I had set up and I had to learn to let go of the little ways in my life so I could discover the BIG that he had in store.
With setbacks and hurdles in tow, these past five years actually ended up being a huge blessing. What initially started out for physical, outward change evolved to be so much more: a physical transformation, turned internal reformation, leading to a reestablished God connection and discovery of my life purposes. Additionally, my long-time pattern was to turn to myself for my plan when times got tough, but now I’m learning daily to turn to His.
I was out of town competing the week they did the spontaneous Baptisms, so when they made another call for this date, my husband said, “That’s right near your fortieth birthday. You should do it!” I knew in my heart it was perfect timing and felt there was no better way to say thank you to Him than to celebrate year five of this transforming journey and year 40 of life, together in this moment!
I remember as a kid when my parents and their friends reached this season, they would drive around toilet papering each other’s homes, sporting black shirts that read, “Over the Hill”. But as I
arrive at this age, I could not disagree more. By the grace of God, today my shirt instead says “Surrendered”. Even though many consider age 40 to be the beginning of the end, with God’s blessing and presence in my whole-person transformation, I honestly feel that life has just begun.
In Matthew 16:24 it reads, “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” I also came across this statement recently in my kids’ daily devotional and it is a nice addition to Matthew: “I designed you to need Me in order to have a full life. In this world you may have many things: popularity, riches, power, possessions, {and in my case the need for daily planning and control}. But unless you have Me, you will always be missing something. Without Me, there is an empty place inside you in this life.”
And to those words I respond, I am working daily to turn from that emptiness, to lay down my cross, and to resist trying to be the god of me. He is now in the driver’s seat and I am very excited to discover the amazing path He has ahead!
To God be the glory!