A faithful God

It’s sometimes hard to believe the extravagance of this adventure that I am about to go on. The thought of leaving everything and everyone for 9 months to travel around the world while living out of a backpack is a little nerve racking sometimes & is going to take a lot of faith. Although I love adventure and traveling to different ends of the earth. I never thought that I would get this opportunity. If you would have asked me a couple of years ago what I wanted to do after I graduated, this would never have been part of my plan.  I never had the confidence & I was very confined to my no risk, easy going life. I lived with so much fear of the future and my self-doubt was crippling. God began to push me out of my comfort zone and into situations that I never would have willingly chosen to be involved in. As I began to trust him, he grew my confidence and gave me a new purpose in life. He taught me that the only one I needed acceptance from was the Lord. 

Today he made me new. Throughout the week leading up to Easter, I was really having a hard time feeling his presence in my life. I was having doubts and was becoming confused with what I was doing. I began to ask him to give me a new spark and burning desire to follow and commit to him fully. And as much to my dismay he began to remind me of the fact that I had not yet been baptized. A little background :) I’ve grown up in the church my whole life. My dad became a senior pastor when I was about 8 years old & since then the church has become my life. My three younger brothers were all baptized when they were around 6 or 7 and took the challenge of standing up in front of the church to express their faith. My dad would encourage me every year to take the step, but I was never ready. I was terrified of standing in front of the church and talking about what God was doing in my life....because what would I say?? I would need a transformation or something.

As I sat in the Easter service listening to these scriptures that I had heard a million times they quickly started to become very real. I sat and watched the baptisms & I hear the Lord saying “you wanted me to show you what was next and this is what I want you to do, I will give you the confidence and words to stand up there in front of everyone. The only thing you need to do is go.” So I said okay Lord, I don't know  about this but here I go” so after the service one of my friends took me to their house to get a change of clothes and within the next service I stood up there & got a few words out before I stepped in the tub to be baptized :)

God is so faithful even when we are so faithless. He works in mysterious ways & leads us into situations that we would never imagine or feel comfortable with but with his grace and confidence he brings us to repentance. God is so so good! Thankful for this crazy adventure that he has called me to. Thank you all for the support and prayer throughout these past months. 

Much love, 
Anna