Igrew up in a Christian family and attend CGBC for all of my life. As a result, I became familiar with the Bible and with the teachings of God. However, I only saw Jesus as a guy who could do all sorts of cool things such as walking on water, and healing sick people. I never see Jesus as my Lord and savior. At VBS when the gospel presenter told everyone to close their eyes and to raise their hand if they wanted to accept Christ as their personal savior, I raised my hand because I wanted to please my crew leaders, my parents, and impress my friends. I never really accepted Jesus as my savior at that time. As my life progressed on and I grew older, my family started having struggles with one another. As years passed on by, the internal struggles of my family began to create a huge burden on my shoulders. I began to worry about coming home. So I began to distant and shut myself away from my family and later on became very rebellious to my parents. I began to lose trust in others and started relying on myself to do things. At school, I began to fall into the temptation of cursing and participated in very inappropriate conversations because I wanted to be accepted by others. I still went to church all of this time, but I taught myself to hide all of my emotions, problems, and church life behind a mask. I never talked to anyone about the struggles and hardships that I had because I was worried about what would happen if people found out that my family wasn’t the perfect Christian household. The pressure that I built up in myself by holding in all of my worries caused me to blame God.

When seventh grade came around the corner, I went to CBM camp. I remember that I only wanted to go so that I could hang out with my friends and to get out of the house. During one of the life walks that I had with my counselor, I finally talked about my problems because he was from another church and could probably never judge my family because he would most likely never see them. He told me that many times we are betrayed by people who were close to us. He continued on saying that even though we betrayed Jesus and gave Him up to be crucified, He still loves us and died for our sins. He said that God will never betray us even though many times we betray Him and His commandments. He explained that God gives us comfort. On one of those nights, I thought about what my counselor said and I decided that I wanted to devote my life to God. I realized that I cannot fight the sins of the world and my struggles that I face on my own strength. I wanted God to take over all of my burdens. I prayed a prayer that went something like this: “God, I know I have been very rebellious to my parents and that I have not been living my life for you but for myself. I do not deserve any grace from you but I ask you God to be my savior and lead me through my troubles.” The next day, the heavy weight of my worries was lifted from me and I felt a sense of peace.

The following months I began to resort to God to be my comfort and to be my guide on living a better life for Him. I began to realize that I do not have to create my own identity by following what the world thinks is cool but that I have a reborn identity in Christ’s death on the cross. A verse that I use to reflect upon is Psalms 127:1-2: “Unless the Lord builds the house those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil: for He gives to His beloved sleep.” This verse talks about that even though we live a life that is morally good, we participate in church, and we do all thing that are good, it does not matter if God had nothing to do with it. Only God will give us comfort from our worries and our burdens. I am taking this step of water baptism because it is a commandment form God and to encourage those who have a similar struggle.