Then...I went to New Orleans. I signed up months ago, but the whole time I went through the process, I was wavering on whether I thought this is what God was truly calling me to. I made excuses saying I couldn't afford the deposit...and then my roommate cut my rent in half for that month. I sent out support letters, convinced the money wouldn't come in, especially as it came down to the last week before the final money deadline...and I ended up going over the amount that we were supposed to raise. The extra money I raised went towards sending another person in my Go Group on the trip.
I could clearly see God at work, and even still, I doubted the timing of the trip. I found out just before we left that I could be losing my job when I got back and asked myself if it was financially responsible to be leaving for a week when I didn't know what my job situation would be like when I got back. Right before we left I learned we would make payroll and that I was going to be okay. God provided, even as I doubted.
At the beginning of the week, we found out that one of my really good friends was no longer in remission from the cancer she had battled the year before. I was numb, not understanding why it seemed as if one hit after another kept coming. The night before we left, one of the guys in our Go Group was in the hospital with food poisoning. The first day in New Orleans, another guy in our group was bit by fire ants and dealt with issues from those all week. It seemed as if everywhere we turned that week, Satan was attacking our group.
He was attacking because he knew what God was going to do. God went before us on that trip and the victories that came out of New Orleans still make me cry tears of happiness. On our second to last night in NOLA, we had a night of encouragement with our Go Groups. That was the night I finally admitted to my team that I felt like I hadn't led them the way I thought a good leader had, that I had let all the things bothering me bring me down. This amazing, amazing group of people were quick to love on me and build me up, in a moment where I truly felt like I had nothing left in me.
That same night, my best friend of 14 years decided that he wanted to be baptized. The change I had seen in him over the course of the week we were in New Orleans was incredible. It was so humbling to watch God knock down barriers in his life and to see the freedom that was coming to the surface. Little did I know what God had planned for the following day.
At the end of Friday, we had a celebration service to celebrate all the good things that had been done that week. The celebration service was also going to include the baptism celebration. Throughout that service, we were encouraged to have a conversation with God about what He wanted us to hear from Him. Then, the song Good, Good Father came on and all my walls came down. I knew I was not the person that my biological father had said I was all those years ago. I was not the identity that I had carried for years. I was a loved, cherished, beautiful daughter of the King, of a Father who loved me and showed me grace, even when I didn't know what it looked like. After worship, we were encouraged to write out a prayer to God, to tell Him what was on our hearts. I wrote a heartfelt apology, telling God that my identity was not what I had carried for years, but that I now knew what it meant to accept love and grace. I told him that I didn't want to carry around the anger and bitterness and pain I had grown up with. I wanted Him to free my heart to move past what had bound me for so long.
After we wrote out what we wanted to tell God, we put our cards in a bowl and selected a Scripture verse. Mine said something like "I loved you before you even knew it." I was done. I sat in that pew and cried my little eyes out because I now understood just how much God loved me as a Father. For months prior to Go NOLA, I had felt God calling me to be baptized, to make a public declaration of my faith in Him. I kept saying the timing wasn't right and always had an excuse to not do it. Our trip director got up and spoke and kept saying "Why wait?" and I heard God asking me "Why do you keep waiting to do the things I have asked of you?" I knew in that moment I had to be baptized that day. I sent my roommate a text and told her I thought I wanted to be baptized and she asked if I wanted her to do it. I couldn't even see through my tears so I put my phone down, found her eyes in the pew, and nodded my head yes. Even as I had made this decision, all I could still about was how I didn't want to overshadow the decision that my best friend had made. I asked him if he would be upset if I chose to be baptized that day too, and his response was to tell me to shut up! He told me that he would never tell me no and then even went on to tell me it was meant to be because I had packed extra clothes in my bag thinking I was going to be the one baptizing him. That set off a fresh new round of tears as I realized that God knew even before I did what would happen that day.
I had struggled with the decision to be baptized because I had been baptized in high school after being told it was just the next thing to do after I became a Christian. I never fully understood what baptism signified until this year and that's when I could hear God asking me to walk in obedience to be baptized. I am so glad I finally listened to that calling because when I came up out of that water, I knew I was a brand new person. Everything from my past has been washed clean and I have a clean slate to start over on. That identity I carried for so long doesn't exist anymore and I can now fully say that I forgive my dad for what happened in my past and that I pray someday he has the peace that I do through Jesus.
Not only did I have the blessing of being baptized alongside my best friend, but I also had the honor of baptizing one of the girls in my small group. Friday was a day full of tears and freedom and I learned just how good God is. People told me going to New Orleans would change my life, but I never knew just how much was going to change. I can't wait to go back next year.
So what happens from here? I continue to walk in obedience and trust God. I still don't know what's going to happen with my job, but I know that God has a plan. I also put myself out on the line and asked for someone to disciple me, someone I had met while in New Orleans last week. That was another area that I had fought God on and I'm tired of fighting. I want to trust Him and I want to walk in obedience because I have seen the fruit and the freedom that come from it. He is a good, good Father.
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