Ten years ago, I was baptized in the Gulf of Mexico on Easter morning at a sunrise service.  

As we visited my parents in Florida last weekend, the morning after Easter we had the opportunity to take a fishing trip out on the Gulf. As we were coming back in toward shore, I stared in awe at that beach where I had rededicated my life ten years before and was just taken aback at God’s goodness in my life. 

I was baptized out of tradition as a baby. I had grown up going to church, but as a teenager and a young adult, I knew of God, but I wasn’t walking with Him. And I surely wasn’t living for him. 

See, leading up to that baptism in 2013, my life had been a mess. I had been wandering, seeking fulfillment in all the wrong places. For years, I had been making unhealthy choices that were a detriment to my health. I was chasing the party life but was never satisfied. I was even about to marry another man that is not my husband.  

And it was then, in my most wayward season, when I was spiritually, emotionally, even financially bankrupted – that God sought me and spoke to me in such a clear and profound way that if I told you how it happened most of you would call me crazy. I called off the wedding and slowly began a journey that would change the course of my future.  

God began showing me that He had a very different plan for me than the road I had been traveling.  

Over the course of the two years that followed, as I leaned into God and sought His will and direction for my life, He made such radical changes in me, that they could only be explained by the Holy Spirit working in my heart and in my mind. I began healing old wounds and stopped detrimental behaviors to my health. I was on fire for the Lord and for the first time in my life was pouring over the Word- learning and soaking in as much as I could. I was, and still am, so far from perfect, but I knew God was working in my life.  

Jesus became my friend. He became my shelter. He became my deliverer. He was my Savior.  

In the two years leading up to my baptism, He led me to my husband. On a blind date of all things. A man so radically different than what I was used to, it again could only be explained by the hand of God working in my life. When he was still my boyfriend, he knew I had felt called to be baptized and encouraged me to be obedient to that call. While he wasn’t perfect, he was much more mature in his faith than I was at that time and he helped me tremendously as my life was changing course.  

Ten years ago, while we were still dating, we went down to Florida to visit my parents for Easter (back then we sat next to each other on the plane, now there are three between us). That sunrise service on the beach with my then boyfriend and my parents, I watched the pastor walk out into the water at the end of the service and encourage anyone who wished to be baptized to come down to the water. I felt the enemy pulling me back in anxiousness and making me second guess what I knew was my next step of obedience. But in my gut, I just knew it was something I needed to do. So, I walked out into the Gulf of Mexico in front of a crowd of strangers and was given encouragement by a pastor I had never met. When I came out of the water, I felt the peace that only comes from following the Holy Spirits prompting. I have no pictures or videos of my baptism; I wasn’t on social media back then- all I have is the bulletin from that sunrise service and I have kept it in my jewelry box as a reminder ever since. I am forever grateful that I took that step of obedience that day.  

That step of obedience was a turning point in my life.  

Did I, and do I, still stumble? Absolutely. But God has never left me, and I know He never will.  

 When I looked out over the Gulf just the other day, I was so struck by God’s grace, goodness and faithfulness in my life. God’s love for us is so great that he will continue to seek us, even when we are running in the other direction. He will be faithful to us, even when we are a work in progress. He will bless us even when we are undeserving. When I see the children he has blessed me with, and the man that I feel honored to be called the wife of- I cannot help but be grateful beyond measure because my life could have looked so different. God gets all the glory for the good in my life.  

That is why I love to share that there is Hope in Christ- hope for a future that is so much better than anything you could ever imagine on your own. God has a good plan and purpose for your life and wants you to trust Him to lead you through it. I love sharing this message in ministry with women who often feel like God is far away, absent or they are ashamed of where they’ve been and the mess they’ve made. Because I’ve been that girl. My life WAS a mess, and thanks to Jesus and His grace and mercy, what was my mess is now my MESSAGE. We are never too far gone for our God to do a redeeming work in us. We have never strayed too far for His loving hand to reach out and pull us back in.  

 I was the outcast. I was the runaway rebel. I was the one trying to fit in. I was ashamed of where I had been. I was the searcher trying to fill the empty space.  

Thank you, Jesus, I’m not searching anymore.  

I would love to hear how God has changed YOUR life, turned your trials into triumphs and your mess into your message.  

And…If you’re still searching, or you feel God stirring something inside of you to take that next step in obedience…it may just be time to come on down to the water- you will rise up new.  

“Whoever drinks from the water I give them will never be thirsty again.” John 4:14