Summer Decisions: Part 3 (Full Speed Ahead!)

Deciding to Get Baptized

Over the past couple of days I have been on different social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, and they have all seemingly had one thing in common.

College

Post after post was another friend commenting about not being able to wait for school to start again, and I agree! I can’t wait to move into my first apartment with one of my best friends! I can’t wait to get my major started! I can’t wait to get back into the gym and learn new, scary death defying skills and have hilarious falls that someone catches on video!

I can’t wait!

But I have to… and I know that. I just keep wishing that I could fast forward time and just start my sophomore year already…

But hold on… aren’t I getting a little ahead of myself? I mean it is only July and I go back to school he first week in September! Although I am technically two months into my summer vacation, it is finally starting! Or so that’s the way it felt.

This is the problem that I am facing and I am sure many other college students are facing similar things as well. There is a drive to be back at school with your sorority sisters or brothers, the team and getting re-acquainted with your orientation group. There is a need to be free once again and to be miles away from your parents grasp and to just have fun! However, there is a similar force keeping us at home where the food is somewhat free and so is the laundry. Sometimes things are just easier at home, there isn’t all of that responsibility that is typically found at college, and it’s nice.

However, with free food and laundry, college still calls you back!

Day after Day!

Growing up college was always a dream. Some people dream about being actresses or singers, but no matter what occupations I switched between, the dream was always college. In college I would finally be out of the house, away from my parents, I would finally have a decent roommate and not my sister. I would have my own phone, my own car… on and on.

But it doesn’t always work out that way…

Don’t get me wrong, college was great and I still want to go back, I find myself wanting to go back everyday! But there were still things that didn’t live up to my expectations such as the lack of drivers license until April of my freshman year. There was also a lack of car until May, and I never thought about the weekends where I would actually have to come home.

I thought leaving for college would give my sister her own room, and everything would be all great! But I didn’t think about what would happen when I came home… and so starts my frustrations.

In the last couple of posts I mentioned that God called me to be home this summer, knowing that he had big plans for me. Restoring relationships was one thing that he is doing, and creating new ones is another. However, those relationships are typically taking place on Sunday mornings and Thursday afternoons. That leaves me wishing on Sunday afternoons, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays that it was Thursday, and on Fridays and Saturdays wishing that it was Sunday morning once again.

Many times I feel like I am wasting my summer away wishing that the days would speed up most of the week and then slow down on one or two of them. I also feel many times that I forget that God is at work this summer, and through the tiny frustrations of life, I just want to go back to college and forget about everything that he has planned to take place this summer.

In fact a couple of Sundays ago, I found myself waking up on the couch in a very uncomfortable position. I had not been getting much sleep at night, but I would often fall asleep on the couch during a movie. When I woke up, I realized I wanted to do something so when I went downstairs I decided that my room could be rearranged.

I spent all afternoon moving everything around, just to realize that it does not fit any other way. I ended up crying as I looked around the basement. I only had two walls, it was loud, cold, my “closet” was made out of a bookshelf with the top taken off and a bar sitting across from it and I had a giant couch in my room that I never really use anyway so it is just taking up space. The basement was obviously not the most ideal room, and the more people came downstairs to do laundry, the more frustrated I got. I just really wanted to talk to Chloe and she was off at camp…

In that moment, I found myself wishing that I were back at school. I missed my best friend, who has been at camp almost all summer, I missed my team, I was tired of working on days that I specifically requested off, and I was just tired in general. On top of everything, I had come back from a lunch with Anthony and Jaryd Motsinger and other people from church, and it was great!

However, every Sunday, I hope for something amazing to happen and when it doesn’t I feel disappointed, and confused. I just sat there with more and more questions about God’s timing!

With everything that he said would happen, it seems like he is taking his good old sweet time with it. I just sat there thinking that by the time God is done working, I am going to be going back to college and it will be like none of this ever happened. I am not going to be able to go back to life groups because I will be in school; I am going to say goodbye to all those friends I made and go back to school. We are both going to move on with our lives and it will go back to the way it was before I came back…

Just sitting back and thinking about it, I couldn’t help but think that God’s timing was awful! He calls me back here, to make friends and start relationships with people that I am going to have to say goodbye to anyway!

But it wasn’t God’s fault at all, in fact his timing is going to be perfect and it is going to happen when he is glorified the most. It was the fact that my heart is in two places, and I am torn.

I am torn between the place where I grew up dreaming about, the place where I am probably the happiest and the place where I built a life there. The place where I am Vice President of the gymnastics club where I can hang out any time I want and actually have friends over. A place where there is really no secrets, and a place where I can finally start my future and get started on that goal of best selling author. My life is in Ypsilanti, but my home is there also.

Then there is Dayspring, the place where I know God called me back to this summer and for specific reasons. Dayspring is the place that used to have the box maze coursing through it every fall, the place that put on the musicals, Jesus Is Alive and The Gospel According to Scrooge. The place with Dinner on the Grounds once every summer and the Parent Appreciation Breakfast that the kid’s church would host for the parents one Sunday morning, and don’t forget, United We Stand every Fourth of July and “Shine Jesus Shine” every Christmas.

Dayspring is the place where thousands of memories were made and a thousand more will be made, and I am sure that there is a call greater than just being a writer, and it is within the walls of Dayspring. Although there are secrets, and family situations that come with being at home, it seems as though being back at church makes it worth the struggles!

My struggle with being torn everyday gives me the question daily, “what am I doing back here?” Why am I not up in Michigan with my friends? However there was a week that God confirmed everything that I was so torn about. It was just another typical night at Life Groups, I had brought my cousin Stephanie for the first time (which is one relationship that God completely restored!). We had our cookout, there was a quick “volleyball game” with food and a lot of laughing and then we all sat down and decided that we were going to share something that we were thankful for.

About an hour into it I was so frustrated with God that I didn’t even want to be there anymore. I was literally yelling at him in my head, “what have you done!? You have done practically nothing!” and God just laughed at me and said “In my own time.” That of course had just made me more frustrated, so I sat back and continued to listen to what was going on around me.

That was when Anthony just said, does someone’s heart hurt? Someone answered and they prayed over him, but there was still a feeling of heaviness, and someone’s heart still hurt. That’s when I looked over to see Stephanie, who never cries, sobbing into her hands. Seeing her like that, reminded me of how I was when I first came back to Dayspring knowing all that had happened my freshman year. It was not an awful year, but there was a lot of guilt that had piled up as the weeks had gone on. Knowing her pain, and seeing her in pain I started crying because I too knew how it felt to be in her position.

Suddenly all the girls had gathered around and we were all praying for Stephanie and it just went on. That’s when it seemed like everyone had split up and there was something big going on! Everything that the girls were saying to Stephanie, lined up with what she had been telling me the last few times we had hung out together and in the car.

Once we had calmed down, Stephanie finally started talking about how everything they were saying was true or what she needed/wanted to hear from God. Every demand that she told God to meet, he did by her being there that night. I of course felt extremely stupid and selfish at that point because while I was sitting there being angry at God for not doing anything he promised this summer, he was healing Stephanie’s heart and restoring his relationship with her.

Our new friend Gela started talking to us about our story and we explained that we grew up at Dayspring and we were both baptized already, and I just mentioned, “but I’ve been thinking and praying about getting baptized again…” Gela’s face lit up and she said, “You want to?” At that moment the plan was set in motion. For months I had been wanting to, but I wanted it to be small and at the right time. I wanted it to be spontaneous and not as if I am showing it off to everyone, just those who were there to witness what had been changing this summer.

We had decided that night that it would not have been right to break into a pond or pool illegally while baptizing in the name of the father son and Holy Spirit. That would be kind of hypocritical. So we scheduled the baptism for the following day. During that day God gave me strength to do things I typically would not be able to do on my own. He gave me understanding and even built up more relationships in the process

When I got baptized I stood right outside the pool, I was so excited, I knew what it meant to get baptized. The first time I had known that it was the death of an old sinful nature and a new life in Christ, but up to that point my biggest sin was lying to my parents. I had never been tempted in a relationship, swore, cheated at anything, betrayed anyone I had never done anything illegal either. But this time, all those little mistakes were like mud that had been caked on for so long! As soon as I started stepping in the pool it was as if step by step more of this dirt was just being washed off.

As Anthony stood there and spoke “because of your confession of faith in Jesus Christ, I now baptize you in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit, buried with Christ, raised to walk a new creation.” He put me under for a second and I could just feel it washing away, and when I came up I felt like all the heaviness on that had weighed on my shoulder for so long, all that guilt that had been there was washed away!

That day something had changed, it started at one in the morning when we wanted to get baptized, it continued when I woke up and God started working in me and helping me do things that I could not do on my own! It continued to when I got baptized and the rest of the weekend.

Saturday I had woken up with joy, not only was I getting to see my best friend, but I was going to get to tell her all that God was doing in my life! As I sat up I just pictured a car going the speed limit for so long, but it finally hit country roads and just sped and sped and kept accelerating! It was full speed ahead from here on out!

Even now as the days start to get tough again and there does not seem to be the joy of the Lord twenty-four seven, God’s hand is still on my life. He will provide.

“Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will worry about itself, each day has enough trouble of it’s own.”

God has made me new and he is working every day in our lives! If you forget that, just look back and remember all the times he was protecting you and guiding you in our life. Think of where you could be instead of where you are! If it were not for God I would probably be engaged to someone who did not believe the same things I did, and I would be missing out on all that God has in store for me! Instead God radically changed my life and pointed out everything that would be possible if I just listened to him and followed him!

Although everyday I find myself wishing that I was back at school, I have dreams that I wake up and I am back in my freshman dorm again with Bailee, I am content with where I am at. Because the world may say, “you are running out of time!” I know better than to think that I am running out of time. Within days God rebuilt my friendship with Stephanie, within a day God built another friendship. I can just picture God siting there laughing when someone says that we are running out of time. In fact he is probably laughing, and saying “just watch this, we are full speed ahead from here on out!”