In July 2025 I got baptised and something in me changed. My perspective shifted completely. The distractions and escapisms no longer felt like a noose around my neck. I was free of caring what others thought about me.
I started reading the bible again, and for the first time the words that used to sound like a story or old text that felt a bit like reading a shakespeare book, started to make sense. It was as if I was looking at a puzzle where I could see the picture hidden in the shadows for the first time. I started being drawn into the words and what was happening. For the first time I couldn’t get enough of the words and the meaning and the guidance that was helping me make sense of the change in thinking and the perspective on life that I was struggling with what shape it would take.
Something was missing in my journey before. I started to pray and my loneliness subsided. The feeling of being misunderstood went away. As I kept praying, my desires started to change and my heart started to change. As my heart started to change, so did my habits that I had tried to stop before but never seemed to have the right amount of will power.
That smoking habit that I just couldn’t quite quit? The desire for it went away. The swearing I had picked up that I could never quite kick- it stopped flowing into my sentences. I have always been a positive person but I had the tendancy to worry about things that I couldn’t control and some might say that it’s natural but ‘future planning’ was one of the biggest worries I had. Some days it felt relentless- the pursuit to try and prepare and make the right decisions for the unseen and unknown. After spending more time in prayer, my perspective had started to shift.
I started prioritising the things that I could change, or that I had control over. One could say I started living in the now. My worries over the future started changing. It wasn’t that the future didn’t matter anymore- it was that I was filled with the peace that if I went through the rest of my days, praying, living with God, living in a way He’s set out for me -which I was starting to get to know through reading the bible- then the future would work out. I started realising that there isn’t always a perfectly right or wrong decision. It would work out, even better than my worrying, ever-planning brain could ever dream.
The changes that were happening in me and showing in how I lived were both extreme and rapid. This is a characteristic of mine- all or nothing. This is not easy to live with. I can be someone who is white and black- you do it or you don’t. You’re in or you’re out. When you change like I did, it affects those around you, and it affected my best friend. One of the lessons I learned, too slowly, was the most important lesson of all. Grace and love. I was not graceful as I cut out all the things I deemed a terrible influence. I was not very considerate always of those around me. Through talking and even more prayer, that was a lesson I had to learn. Not everyone’s journey is the same. Especially those we are closest with.
Grace is one of the most important things for us as christians, and it is the first thing left by the wayside when we are in relationship with others- we don’t always think about grace looking differently with everyone. Grace is not ignoring habits and things that need to change. Grace is recognising those things and realising that we are all sinners. If you want there to be a change in someone, the only one who can make that change happen is the Holy Spirit. Our responsibility as a community is to be understanding, have grace and patience, and love in the situations, because we realise we are all sinners. We cannot set boundaries, manipulate, convince, bribe anyone or change their heart. That was one of the most difficult things to accept for me. Since then, I have let my life and my actions show the change in my heart. If you don’t agree with something anymore, don’t participate and don’t go.
Every single one of us has our own free will. We have a brain, we have our own decisions to make. We have our own personalities and we have our own habits. Things we love and like and things we’re drawn to. One of my biggest enjoyments if you will, was going to the pub with friends and family, having a braai (barbecue), and having a few drinks. I really struggled with having just one or two, the ‘all or nothing’ in me didn’t understand the ‘moderation is key’ mantra. I enjoyed the social aspect as it gave me something to do. I enjoyed talking to people, I became more social when I drank as well and so I sometimes thought that my personality improved when I drank. It was fun, and that’s when I made memories.
However, I knew in the back of my mind that it had a hold on me. It distracted me from healthy things. It kept me from moving on and building a better life. That is what drinking and being social in that way does. It distracts from building better habits, because it robs you of sleep and time for other things. For me it kept me out of church and exercising, because I was tired. I ate badly and my appetite was a disaster. Sometimes there was a fog, and it became work and social and work and social. There wasn’t time or energy for anything else.
At some point I stopped being as social and drinking as much, and started exercising. However, when I did drink I couldn’t stop at one drink no matter what. Eventually I asked the question, “what was I doing with my life, where was I going and if I was a mom, what example am I setting for my children one day?” What was the most important thing in my life then? Friends, social, my husband? Those could be good things but where is God in all of that? What was the meaning of this life then? What was it all for? Life on the outside was good, but emotionally I had hit a low that felt like the bottom.
The next week, I got baptised. I haven’t smoked since. I can have a drink now, and I can stop at one. I have the one thing I never did: Self-control. I am still by no means perfect. I have messed up once or twice, but I’m back at the drawing board with the Holy Spirit showing me what to work on and what to change. I have since learned that self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It shows the change in the heart, which only happens when you have a God centered life.
I had been baptised before and I have been saved before. I did believe in God before.
Why is it so different this time?
This time I really said I can’t do it on my own. I don’t know how to do it on my own. I didn’t know how to stop worrying, how to not overplan, how to not drink, how to fit in exercise, how to be a good wife, how to eventually become a mom. I had made a checklist of what needed to be done and how I needed to change. How could I do all that though? I had to accept I couldn’t. I realised I really needed to die to myself- what I wanted, my worries, my will. I had to lay myself and all my habits I was struggling with (my sin) down and say “okay Lord, how do I go forward with You, because it hasn’t gone so good without You.”
I did it in reverse though, because the ‘why’ only came afterwards for me. As I was finishing the new testament I started asking the question; why Christianity? Why God? Why are we right? I mean I knew it was right, but I couldn’t really explain it. I felt alive for the first time. I was starting to love myself, and accept my personality and quirks for the first time. I was living in the moment and really enjoying life, just for it’s beauty for the first time. But how do I explain that?
I also realised that most people want to know the ‘why’ first. I mean dying to yourself sounds extreme, so what’s that about? If I say that to someone who is not familiar with Christian terms and phrases, they will think I’m one step off the looney block. So how do I consolidate the feeling, the change, the truth, with a logical and reasonable explanation?
Everyone wants to know that they’ve made the right decision, and based on where you come from and how you were raised, what’s right has a different coloured lens. Also, what’s ‘normal’? That’s a completely relative question. So how do we answer all these questions?
Why should everyone choose God? Why is tolerance wrong? Why is it only christianity? Why are we right about there being only one God. These are questions that I cannot answer in one post. But, that is why I have started this blog. To slowly answer the big questions and help things make a little bit more sense.
The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:14 “and if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless” and the apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 3:15-16 “ Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And If someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way…”
These are men who died for the faith and would not renounce that Jesus rose for any reason, not even when faced with the worst death imaginable.