How Do I Become Saved? - My Personal Testimony, Part Three

          “So apparently it took a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and my ultimate weakness (a nice, intelligent, attractive, Christian man) to genuinely prompt the strengthening and overall deepening of my faith. Though the man was a temporary part of my life as we only talked online for a few months until it inevitably fizzled out, his impact on me was not. I found myself wanting to know the Bible like he did, desiring to recite verses as if they were tattooed inside my brain, and remain faithful to the Lord. I wanted to pursue God with my whole heart now and it took me over twenty years to get to this point. Total, complete surrender. I really wasn’t the good Christian girl that I claimed to be all of those years which ashamed me, but now I had all of the time in the world to build my relationship with Him starting from square one.”

          One of my favorite aspects of being Christian is how the Holy Spirit manifests the work that God has done in us throughout our entire lives. When I look back on the last five or so years of my life (as I do somewhat regularly), I almost can’t believe how He thought of using certain people, events, diversions, mistakes, and circumstances to lead me to where I am today, right now. I sometimes like to look at it as if I’m looking at a world map. From far away, you can see each continent, every country, all of the seas in one big picture. It all makes sense. But when you look at it up close, you see the intricacies of the map; your state, hometown, etc. etc. And if someone were to show you only one small, completely random portion of the map and ask you to explain it, you’d probably be like, “uhh what the heck is this I don’t even know who you are or what I’m looking at?!” It would be confusing to say the least. 

          Sometimes it feels as though I’ll be watching God draw the map from a magnified perspective and try to make sense of what He’s drawing as He’s drawing it. I genuinely don’t know what He’s doing or how it relates to the rest of it all, but I know that whatever He’s rendering on the map is pertinent and a necessary part of the overall picture, making it perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Especially lately, I’ve noticed that I will make a decision and then wonder to myself how it impacts God’s overall plan for my life. It could be something as simple as deciding whether I want leftover baked ziti or an omelet for lunch...ok not really (by the way did I mention that I’m Italian?). But still, as I work on building my relationship with the Lord I have become so much more in tune to how He is currently working in my life because of what He has previously done in my life.

          Since encountering “cute Christian-Hinge guy” on a dating app that was otherwise rendered useless to me, my spiritual life has grown almost unfathomably. In September 2020, I had embarked on a month-long discipleship Bible study with my uncle (the same one that I spoke with when I first became saved) which was nothing short of transformative. My faith at that point was at an all-time high and I have never felt the Holy Spirit so present within me. I memorized verses that only the Lord could have gotten me to remember and learned how to lead someone to Christ (if the Lord is willing) through His word.

          Ironically, after being on that spiritual high of my life, the miniscule but still present bit of doubt buried deep within me came to an instant head, completely disrupting the fast track that my faith was on. This time, being fully aware of the enemy at work, I woke up one day questioning whether or not I believed in God at all……………...wait, what? How I could go from being fearlessly confident in my relationship with the Lord to now doubting His existence entirely just left me completely dumbfounded. Regardless of my feelings though, I remember thinking to myself that this was merely a test and if I could overcome this by trusting in God then I could overcome anything. I knew that if I were chosen by Him, He would not let me lose my salvation. 

Philippians 1:3-6 - “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, 5 for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ”

          Writing this in a way that makes any logical sense at all is difficult, so I can only imagine what you must be thinking right now...Though I painfully wrestled with doubt, during this trial I almost felt as if God and I were on opposite sides of a thick wall of frosted glass; I could see a vague figure and knew that He was on the other side of me, but yet I couldn’t be entirely certain that it was Him. Either way, I cannot even begin to express how much I completely and utterly abhorred this feeling. I still knew deeeeeeeep down that He was there, but it shook me to my core. There was a spiritual war going on within me and my body was the battleground. 

          ...There was one day in October last year where I decided that it might be helpful to forget about everything for a few hours, clear my head, and be still. I decided that I was not going to pray, immediately filling with regret after making this decision as though I were voluntarily entering into dangerous waters (which I was)...I didn’t know what else to do and I by no means denounced my faith, but just thought that it was better to stand back and allow God to fix me if He really was there and heard my cries for help all this time (which I knew He did, but feeling defeated I didn’t know what else to do). This day was spent in Brooklyn with my family, walking along the bridge. The air was crisp despite the pollution wafting in from Manhattan, and the view: breathtaking as always. It was simultaneously chaotic and serene as dozens of people walked past us each second. Kind of like how I was feeling all day and for days-weeks before that. After a long afternoon on the bridge, my family and I drove to an old pizzeria in the city where we were the only ones to eat inside (because of covid). The waiter placed the huge pies onto our table and we each grabbed a slice. I hunched over my food as if to pray, but said nothing. I was thankful for my food and wanted God to bless it, but again I just didn’t know what to do. 

          Still feeling completely unsettled, later that night I realized that I couldn’t go a day without praying. I wanted to talk to God and felt that by not engaging with Him, it only made me long for Him even more. Despite having this doubt and conflicting emotion and all of the weird, I-don’t-even-know-what weighing on my shoulders, I really believed and wanted to believe that He was there. 

          So, I made the choice to do all that I could to show God that I was willing to work to get my faith back to where it was only a short while ago. I prayed multiple times to Him each day (especially when I felt doubt taking over), asking for relief and direction, and wrote prayers in a notebook pleading for Him to deliver me out of this season of my life. I read the Bible each and every day (I think the book of Job) and a Charles Stanley book about improving your prayer life-which I so desperately needed. 

          Ultimately, I was struggling with doubt on and off for about three months. And then several months after that. But in that time I never stopped praying and relentlessly sought the Lord’s presence. I have journal entries describing this season of my life from 10/19/2020, 12/1/2020, and 4/2/2021, (and later found some from May 2021) all of which express entirely different emotions. One similarity though, was that each entry admitted how much love I possessed for God and how I didn’t want to lose my relationship with Him. I would work as hard as needed to keep Him in my life. And I think it was my desire to be with God that helped my faith grow and flourish beyond the dark season that I found myself in, aside from the Lord pushing me past this point of course…

          ...And although I cannot fully recall the sequence of events that took place in between May 2021 and now, slowly but surely my faith, trust, and assurance in Him grew. At the beginning of this year, I even wrote “get baptized” on my New Year’s Resolution list--something I never imagined I’d do (since it’s not technically required to enter into heaven) but had felt it laying on my heart since December 2020. For the first time in my life I seriously pondered this concept as it gnawed at my heart and soul, longing to come to fruition. This past year was the first time in which I felt spiritually mature enough to get baptized, knowing that the doubt that I felt did not compare to God’s undeniable presence in my life. It was time to stop focusing on a “feeling” and start acknowledging the Truth. 

          ...So around August of this year, I reached out to my church and inquired about baptism. Growing more nervous with each step I took to prepare for the momentous day, I tried to remember that God has literally been building up my entire life for this event, and that He wanted me to do this. There were times in between August and November (when I was baptized) where I felt ill-prepared for this step. I was mad at myself at times for being disobedient and felt as though I wasn’t “good enough yet” to receive such a blessing and make such a commitment to the Lord. But overall, I knew in my heart that the enemy would keep me feeling this way in an effort to prevent me from taking this next step with Jesus. After pushing past all of my intrusive feelings yet again, I took the plunge on November 21st and got baptized...and boy am I happy that I did!!

          Of course nerves got to me that night and I was afraid to be on the jumbo screens at my church. But nevertheless, I was so eager to do this, to show God that I only want to live if I can live with Him by my side each and every day. I was second to last out of about fifteen people to get baptized that night, and the almost two-hour long evening flew by in a matter of no time. When it was finally my turn to walk into the tub of water, I heard my pre-recorded testimony on the big screens and saw my pastor smile at me. He whispered, “are you ready?” and I nodded. He asked if I believed that God sent His only Begotten Son down to cleanse us from our sins and I said yes. He spoke for another second or two (the moments leading up to the submersion were all a blur) and before I knew it, I was under the water.