Today is the anniversary of my baptism and wanted to share my journey to God and testimony with you all. If you are inspired to share yours, please comment below.

The more I released my grip on worldly things over the years, the less I wanted to be here. It became a constant prayer to God, “please take me home, I don’t belong here”. From a very young age I was always a “seeker” of needing more meaning to this life. No matter what I accomplished, where I traveled to or who I met along the way; things of this world were never satisfying enough. I understood from an early age that everything in this world is temporary and fleeting so why get too attached to the idea of absolutes? This included my views on there being many paths to God. As a young adult, being introduced to teachings of the New Age fit these concepts perfectly.

Earlier that year before my baptism, I had watched a video of a reformed Christian from New Age teachings, Doreen Virtue. I have always been drawn to the angelic world and she published many books and materials on how to make contact and connect with angels. While randomly looking her up, I had stumbled upon her testimony of coming to Christ and her denouncing the New Age. I immediately took interest because I knew this wasn’t a small feat for someone of her tenure that was so deeply involved as a New Age leader. She spoke of the severity of deception through New Age & cited scripture warning against idolatry & false teachings.

Little did I know that in that very moment the Holy Spirit was guiding me to the end of myself as I knew it and my rebirth in Christ would shortly follow.

Having never read the Bible; I spent the entire day and was up all night reading scriptures, biblical podcasts and videos. I was blown away of the immense feeling of absolute truth of God’s words piercing into my heart. It was as if I had finally found a thing that was able to quench my thirst; breathing life into this very, very exhausted and broken spirit of mine.

Truly redemption had occurred.

The next morning I made the clear decision to denounce all things esoteric & new age from my teachings. Quickly realizing it had kept me continuously confused in a never ending rabbit hole & separation from God by constantly seeking through these teachings & measuring my spiritual maturity to “being a good person” with the measurement being to my external world & self efforts. Through this new lens I could see so very clearly just how broken and sinful I had been; how separated I had been from God all this time and how badly I needed to be saved in order to have right relationship with Him. Years of efforts in controlling my “energy”, other’s “energy”, self glorification and methods of affirmations to God as if He’s a genie granting wishes. I kept saying, “Father, I am so sorry”. All I wanted was to set things right and never be separated from Him again. It was from this day since that I have felt God’s gift of grace on my life. It is something that happened for me in a way that I can never forget and never want to take for granted. I never really paid attention to what the lyrics Amazing Grace truly meant. I now sing this song in full reverence of His grace on my life. I didn’t truly understand what it meant to receive the Holy Spirit. I now know that it is absolutely a very real gift of God received as your moral compass by salvation. I had been saved by wholehearted repentance & surrendering on that day. No matter how self reliant I was, this could not have ever been possible on my own. It was through my repentance & through Jesus giving His life for my sins it was possible. By death of my old life, God answered my prayer of bringing me home. He had waited patiently and faithfully on me. A new life that I now WANT to live through the purity of God’s truth & for His glory. I have promised Him to live solely in the name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He truly saved me & I was “born again”.

No longer seeking, I had finally found what I didn’t know I had been searching for all along. In a world of “temporaries” and “no absolutes”; I am absolutely certain of one thing alone. For a person to have access to God and true communion with Him; it can only be found through abiding in relationship with Jesus Christ.

On July 23rd, I publicly professed Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior through my baptism. Leaving it all in the water, on that day, I died completely to my old life for a life with Jesus. I was made anew through the blood of Christ for my answered prayer of someday coming home.