In 4th grade, I heard the gospel for the first time. After hearing this, I thought that if I was not baptized, I could not be saved. After months of being anxious about my sin and how I deserved hell, I was baptized. I immediately felt relief because I thought baptism was the way to salvation.

After being baptized I fell back into this cycle of anxiety and sin. I put off God and told myself that he would be waiting there for me whenever I was ready to act like a Christian. Fear of man, fear of the world, and hopelessness were all things that consumed my life. I continued going to church but did not act like I was a believer throughout the week. I continued to be sinful without repenting or thinking about what Christ did for me. I was constantly filling voids with friends or activities. 

I continued this way for a while during high school until the Lord changed my heart. Through months of people pouring into me and the Lord revealing my sins and my need for Him, He saved me. He showed me that I was putting my hope in people and activities. I was putting my hope in things that would fail me. But the Lord became my rock, and he has proven himself time and time again. Most of all he has proven I can trust Him through his death, life, and resurrection.

The Lord also showed to me over time that I am not responsible for my conversion. It is not through baptism that you are saved, but it is through believing in Christ and trusting in him. I used to think it was up to me if I was a good enough person and that I had to deserve God's Grace. But that is not true. We will never deserve God’s grace. Which is why Christ had to come.

Left alone to ourselves we are helpless in our sin and can never be saved by our good works. I would have never chosen the Lord if he did not choose me first. God shifted my heart through hard circumstances and showed me I’m not in control. I’m so thankful that God in his sovereignty pursued me and placed people in my life to point me to the Gospel even when that was not what I was searching for. As Titus 3:4-7 says, “4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”