Changed My Life

“When we are immersed in water, it is like the Burial of Jesus. And when we are taken out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. We leave the old land of sin underwater, and go out to the new land of Grace.”

This was on a piece of paper I read at our Saturday night youth group in Turrialba, Costa Rica. After reading this I sat down with the Lord that night and asked him if I was ever going to actually be able to give my life to him. 

 I started slowly seeking after the Lord the beginning of my junior year of high-school after going to a young life camp that summer. I remember 16 year old Aby crying at Washington Family Ranch because she couldn’t get herself to go “sit at the table” with everyone else. I was bawling, telling myself I couldn’t go sit at the table yet because I knew I was going to go back to partying and repeating my same sins that I thought I needed to fulfill who I was. Junior year passes by and I head back to WAFARA going into my senior summer. As I was headed there, I prayed to God and asked for more of him and less of me focusing on all the fun that goes down at camp, and he sure did give me what I asked for. My senior year I started going to less parties and was attending church every Sunday. Every now and then I would hear people talk about baptism and ask me if I would ever get baptized.  That was always a conversation that I’d squirm my way out of. Knowing I’d have to fully give up some things to live my life scared me, and it wasn’t a promise I was ever able to keep.

Jump to (January 2021) Training camp in Gainesville Georgia, where I heard the Lord tell me that I was going to be baptized soon. I remember sitting in the chair straight up confused. I kept denying it because I truly never thought I’d be able to surrender the life I was living for man, and fully live for God. So for a whole month I forgot about it. Then, that night at youth group, at “Iglesia de Nazareth” I read that paragraph. I prayed and waited. 3 days later, it happened.

I was running across a bridge on February 9th, at 9:30 pm in Costa, Rica with my friends who I had only known for a month. All of a sudden I am in the Pacuere River, in my sweatpants and over sized t-shirt starring at the moon. (World race fitts am I right??) I was amazed by Gods creations. The trees stuck out to me that night, how they were just there. Existing. The chirping of the crickets sounded beautiful for the first time ever. I felt the water and looked at the moon, when I heard God tell me, “Aby it’s your time, choose me.” I stopped, smiled, didn’t second guess, I just trusted him. I looked over at Matthew and said “um Matthew… Can you baptize me right now.. please?” He then came into the water in his jeans and baptized me. 

 As I was lifted out of the water, I felt free. My heart dropped in a way it had never dropped before. Knowing that I was finally able to drop kick the devil and tell him that he has no hold on me from running to my Father in times of sadness or trouble. I still look back at that night, that I was reborn and feel such a comfort. Aby in September of 2020 would had never seen herself being baptized in a river in Costa, Rica. But God did. 

So thank you God. Thank you for changing my life, but also creating an organization that has loved me through these last 6 months. I could talk about my leaders here on the field and the world race staff, but that’s a blog for another time.

 

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Crazy to say we will be landing in Florida in 9 days. Prayers for our last few days with each other as a whole and travel would be appreciated. Gap 23 means so much to me, and I for real wouldn’t have been here with out God. He’s so good. wow.