What He Did That Day

Yesterday we enjoyed a day at Douglas Lake, in Tennessee. So beautiful. The water was just right. The view was more beautiful than the pictures give it justice.

While watching my girls swim, I sat on the shore and scooped up handfuls of silky sand. It was therapeutic. The shore was peppered with all sorts of rocks. I started to collect the ones that stood out to me; finding all sorts of little treasures. But when I got them back to the cabin, their unique qualities disappeared!

The tiny details in each one was no longer there and I couldn’t remember why I chose this one or that one anymore.

So I soaked them in water. The water brought out the lights, darks and glittery details they once had. This process reminded me of something said to me last year.

I was going through a battle of understanding anger. No matter how many times I prayed and begged God to take it away, it was always there. I asked the advice of a traveling evangelist if he believed we could be healed of anger or was it something that we just had to live and deal with. He said to me, in a gentle way, you need to get a hold of what happened at your baptism. That statement left me confused and angry.

Many months later I would learn what that meant. As I learned to let go of shame, and began to forgive myself for the choices I’ve made in my life. I also learned to forgive myself for allowing others to hurt me and shame me over the years. Part of the dialogue to God was as follows. “Only by Your grace and what you did on the cross that day, can I forgive myself for…_______.

All of that is gone in the water. The water washes it all away! I spent many years of my salvation dry like those rocks. I came out of the water and dried out. I didn’t embrace all the unique qualities and details that the water and it’s symbolism provided.

Now I like to think of myself as dripping wet from my baptism and shining with His unique qualities, while those dried out stones are left behind in my past!

Die With Me Today is a 3 part post I wrote that speaks of baptism and it’s symbolism. What happened to Him, happens to us when we decide to repent and turn from out old ways, by dying to the flesh. We then rise out of the watery grave of baptism to be a new creation in His sight and in the sight of ourselves, if we embrace the wet, newness it brings!

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