You are a hiding place for me;
You preserve me from trouble;
You surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah.—Psalm 32:7
5 years ago today, I was born (again).
On 15 September 2013, I was baptized; I accepted Christ and joined God’s family. And each year on this day, I think about the journey that He took me through to get there, and the journey He took me through since then.
By the time the opportunity arose, I already decided to take the step. I planned on inviting my friends and family to celebrate with me and my church family, and even to use it as a springboard for conversation with others. God had other plans.
I was invited to a friend’s church event at the Durham Bull’s baseball stadium. We went with a small group of friends from school. I don’t really remember much about the event itself, except they said something like almost 11,500 people were in attendance that day. At the end of the event, they did an altar call, inviting anyone who felt called to get baptized right then and there.
I felt the tug, but I hesitated. I wanted to get baptized at my home church, I wanted to do it with my church family on my terms. My entire family was attending a wedding across the country that day, and I told my parents I would invite them when the time came. None of the friends I was with normally attended my home church at the time. I didn’t attend the church that was hosting. There were literally thousands of people watching people get baptized on a huge Jumbotron screen. The list went on.
Two days before this all happened, I received news that an MRI uncovered a congenital brain deformity that may have been the cause of a bunch of neurological symptoms I was battling with at the time. The only real treatment for my condition was cranial nerve decompression surgery. (Spoiler alert: The deformity is benign and I didn’t have to get the surgery.) Needless to say, the future was uncertain. I was supposed to be at the peak of my health having the time of my life at university, and I was on the verge of medically withdrawing from school.
God spoke to me in my hesitation. My family isn’t here. My friends aren’t here. “I know what you’re thinking,” the pastor said, “You’re thinking that your friends and family aren’t here. But we have people here to photograph and record this moment for you to share with them.” While it was nice to have photos of the event, what God really told me was, Jasmin, your family is here. The whole Church is your family.
At the time, my faith was still a very private matter. The thought of sharing my testimony and getting publicly baptized was already difficult enough, let alone in front of thousands of people I never met. People who wanted to get baptized (I think it was over 500 people) gathered by the stage. We were assigned to volunteers to talk with one-on-one to share our testimonies. I guess they were there to make sure we were making this decision with the right heart posture. I briefly shared with the young man they assigned me what had been going on in my life and I remember saying something along the lines of, “Even though my body in this life feels like it’s wasting away, I know my soul will live eternally with God. I know I have to do this and I have to do this now.” Then they gave us shorts to change into and a black shirt with big white letters that said, JESUS IN MY PLACE, and we waited in lines to climb into one of six huge hot tub vats to get baptized.
About a month and a half after I got baptized, I recounted the experience in my journal:
Back then, I felt like I could do anything; I was finally on the right track to a “better life” since I finally pulled myself together after so much time struggling with the concept of faith. With following God with a genuine heart. I finally felt like I was Christian for the first time. When I made the decision to get baptized it made me so happy and full that I started to cry. Like my soul was released after being imprisoned in the dark cage of my heart and was finally get its first tastes of freedom. It was such a raw, spiritual feeling. Even with my whole family in California, I felt like it didn’t matter because it was just between me and God, despite there being thousands of people there.
When I rose from the water the other 11,500 people just fell away, and I found the comfort of my hiding place.
