Peace That Can't Be Shaken: My First Year After Baptism

A year after baptism marked the most challenging yet transformative period in my life, proving that spiritual growth doesn't eliminate hardship but provides the foundation to withstand life's storms with newfound resilience and perspective. The journey revealed that peace doesn't come from perfect circumstances but from accepting what can't be changed and finding joy in small moments.

• Understanding the difference between self-awareness and self-criticism
• Baptism experience providing a sense of acceptance and a clean slate
• Facing relationship breakdown, my daughter's bipolar diagnosis, and job loss
• Learning that God never promised an easy life—only that it would be worth it
• Finding genuine self-love, forgiveness, patience, and gratitude through hardship
• Discovering true peace that isn't dependent on external circumstances
• Realizing that mistakes don't invalidate faith—we're all on different timelines
• Waking up with gratitude instead of dread for the first time since age 15

God loves you. You're enough, you're built for this, and until next time, have a good night.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Podcast Identity
• 4:15 My Baptism and Fear of Failure
• 9:06 Facing Life's Curveballs After Baptism
• 18:07 Rock Bottom and Starting Over
• 24:31 Finding Peace and Self-Discovery
• 31:30 Prayers and Final Reflections

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

You better check yourself before you break yourself. You better check yourself before you break yourself. I feel like my podcast has gone through an identity crisis, or me I've gone through an identity crisis of naming the podcast. The check yourself part has always been very clear to me and, honestly, the whole name should have been very clear to me and, honestly, the whole name should have been pretty clear to me because what came to me was check yourself, fool or fool, however you want to say it, but I didn't want to name it that because I felt like putting the word fool in there was going to be perceived as a negative thing and I didn't want it to be negative because my purpose is for anyone, not just believers, not just followers, but anybody who feels like they're going through something or feels like they are not good enough or not worthy, just feels very negative about themselves overall. I didn't want to add to that by calling them fool, but I'm not calling you fool and really the name is more of a question to yourself, a question to myself.

Speaker 1: 1:22

I am very honest with myself. I would like to think that I'm pretty self-aware, but there's a difference between awareness and beating yourself up and I did not know that difference. Check yourself full is self-awareness. Asking yourself, checking yourself what is going on? Am I contributing to the situation? Am I contributing to my own troubles in life? Beating yourself up is saying I ain't ish, I will never amount to it and I will always be a crappy person. It's telling yourself that you're all the words that people have called you and just pointing out all the negatives. But instead of changing them, just accepting them and selling yourself short by basically believing that this is who you are and this is who you'll always be. But I wanted people to know that there is so much more to you than where you're at. No matter where you're at, you can always go further. You're actually built to be way more than what you could even imagine. There's way more potential in you than you know, but in order to reach that potential, you have to have self-awareness. With no self-awareness, you don't know in what areas you need improvement and you can grow. With all that being said, I started thinking about the podcast and I started thinking about my baptism, mostly because I was baptized June 9th of last year and it was June 9th of this year and I was excited about the fact that I had made it a year. I'm going to be extremely honest.

Speaker 1: 3:21

One of my fears about making a promise to God and being baptized and accepting God in my life was failure, and I believe it's because I have a fear of failure overall, and that stands from the fact that I feel like I have failed at absolutely everything in life. I have failed at school, I had failed at being a mom. I had failed relationships so many of them and that's how I saw it. I felt like I just could not win at anything. That's not even what was important to me of my baptism to where I am today as a person. If I look at my relationship with God last year, to what it is today and I mean relationship, I don't mean going to church, I don't mean going to church groups or praying or any of that. I mean I have built a relationship, I have built my trust and I have built my faith in a way that I never even thought possible.

Speaker 1: 5:00

So, thinking about last year when I was about to get baptized, it was like the week before and I was getting a little nervous because I had a lot of questions in my head. One, because I was raised in a way where God only loved you if you were perfect, if you did all the right things and followed all the rules. Perfect, if you did all the right things and followed all the rules. And I know that I wasn't following all the rules and I knew realistically that even after being baptized I was going to break some of those rules, because nobody changes overnight and there are some things that are harder to break than others and some things that we do that aren't necessarily right, but they don't feel wrong if that makes sense, one of them being the fact that I was not legally married. I was engaged, I lived with my fiance, we had a daughter, so I wonder what that meant for me. With getting baptized, my fiance wasn't getting baptized and my fiance was living his life. So I didn't want to get baptized if I was just going to mess up, but I also really wanted to make the next step in building my relationship with God. Not only am I telling you that I'm going to follow you, obey, give you my life, my trust, but I also want to show you, I want to follow in your footsteps of what you did. So I went ahead and got baptized.

Speaker 1: 6:48

It was definitely one of the best days of my life. I remember walking into the tub and sitting down, there was a woman to my right, there was a man to my left. The woman asked me do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior? I looked at her and I had this instant overwhelming feeling come over me, almost like a relief, and I felt love and nothing but not me feeling the love. But I felt loved as if someone was giving me a hug after years of needing that hug. It was like full acceptance. That's the feeling I received at that moment and I said yes, I went down into the water and it was very quick, but it felt a lot longer because, as I was going into that water, almost all of the horrible things flashed through and left my body.

Speaker 1: 7:55

This is a very, very different experience and I'm sure everyone goes through it differently. Sure, everyone goes through it differently. I think for me it was extremely meaningful because it was my choice and probably because of my age. I was able to understand truly everything that was going on and the promise that I was making. I was fully aware of everything. So I feel like I was able to really understand and appreciate that moment. I came out of the water and I felt relief. I felt clean, and when I say clean, I mean like my soul felt less heavy and I felt like I was getting a second chance, a redo, a start over, which I desperately needed in my life. I would love to tell you that after that day I became perfect, but I did not and honestly, life started to get a lot harder for me after that.

Speaker 1: 9:06

A lot of people think that when you come to God, that he's some sort of magician and all your troubles should be gone. And if they don't, he must not be that great. What's funny to me about that is in John 16, 33, jesus clearly states I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace In this world. You will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. We were never told that just because we believe in God, believe that Jesus gave his life for our sin, that meant from here on out it's a walk in the park and I would honestly argue, if anything, it gets harder because while you are trying to do the best that you can and you are trying to grow and you're trying to be a better person overall, not just for yourself but for the benefit of others.

Speaker 1: 10:13

Even though you're doing all these things, the world is business as usual and unfortunately, a lot of people don't care. A lot of people don't care how saved you are or how much you try or how nice you are or any of those things, and a lot of times there are people out there who are going to keep the image of the person that you used to be, and you're going to struggle if you keep trying to prove that you're not so with turning life over to God. You have to come to a point of acceptance that, no matter what you do, people are going to be people and they are going to be who they are. They will have their own opinions of you and you cannot base your behavior or your actions, reactions on what they do or say, and you can't give up working on who you are meant to be just because other people want to continue to see you as what you were. So that was a struggle, because I was feeling like I was really trying. I was feeling like I could see that I was growing as a person, I was growing in my faith and I could see that my heart was being softened, but other people couldn't see that and at a point it started to be discouraging and I had to understand that what I was doing it wasn't for people to recognize that I was being so nice and great and all this stuff. I was doing it for me, I had to do it for me.

Speaker 1: 12:06

Life started throwing all kinds of curveballs. So not too long after I was baptized, my relationship was over. Well, it was over before that, but it really hit the fan after and that was extremely hard and extremely painful and I had to keep just praying and asking God and there was some really, really dark times and I felt so desperate and at that moment I thought that God was supposed to fix that. I just kept believing, I kept having faith and hope. Things became really, really unbearable at that point and I remember I was in the kitchen and I asked God if you could just please get me out of this situation. I will hand my life and focus just on you for a year. And what I was referring to was I wouldn't look for another man for a year, because I had this tendency of you know that saying you get over someone, get under someone else, something like that.

Speaker 1: 13:15

So that was my, my go to response for a breakup or you know whatever, and I didn't want to do that again. One because this time it hurt so much more differently than previous times. This last time was really just. I have never experienced that type of hurt and I don't know if anyone would understand this, but this is the type of hurt that it hurts so bad that you can't you can't even express it outerly, you just feel it internally. So I wasn't crying, screaming, crying it was. I felt truly broken on the inside. I realized that it felt so hard and it hurt so bad because my whole happiness was wrapped around this relationship and I didn't want to do that again. I truly wanted to.

Speaker 1: 14:30

Instead of handing my broken heart to another person again and them having control of putting it back together or breaking it or any of that, instead of handing the control of my life and happiness to another human, I wanted to hand it to God. I wanted him to fix my broken heart, for him to be the one to put it back together, because I knew at that point that he was never going to leave my side. So there was no danger of my heart being broken again because a person that held the key to my heart was God, who is perfect in his love for us, and nothing I do could ever take that away from me Real, unconditional love, whereas, unfortunately, as humans, no matter how much we love somebody, even if we don't know it, there are conditions. So once I made that promise in the kitchen, I kept praying. I wanted to make sure I made the right decision. I didn't want to make decisions based on anger, based on hurt, based on fear. So I waited for God to give me an answer, for him to tell me what my next move was, and so he did.

Speaker 1: 16:00

Months later, I got my stuff moved out of my house, got my own place, and I thought I'll be better, because in the past, when I left a situation, I felt better. But one of the reasons was because I would have distractions. I never went through any type of breakup and truly feel or felt the pain. I never went through the feelings because I was already mesmerized by something new or I was out distracting myself with either partying with my friends or spending money I didn't have. I would just have all kinds of little vices that would distract me from what I was going through this time because of who I was serving, who I was following and who I made a promise to. I literally had to feel every single feeling that I was going through. I had to think about that I was going through. I had to think about everything that had just happened. I had to think about the fact that I was starting over, and when I say starting over, I mean like all the way starting over.

Speaker 1: 17:20

My daughter then got sick. We had been dealing with some issues with her since the beginning of the year and they came to a head. We ended up having to take her to a hospital and my daughter was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and that was really hard for me because I knew how hard things were going to be for my daughter going forward. It is one thing for me to deal with living with this. It is a whole nother thing to watch my daughter trying to navigate it as a child. I didn't want her to have to go through the things that I have gone through, so I wanted to be there for her that I have gone through. So I wanted to be there for her. I wanted her to have all the support that I never had and because I've been going through this, I felt like I would be able to share with her and help her so that the ride would be less bumpy. It's not going to be easier, because we all have our own set of challenges, but at least she wouldn't feel alone and she wouldn't feel misunderstood.

Speaker 1: 18:38

So once that happened, I didn't realize how much stress I had been under for the past however many months year and I got sick. I probably had the worst episode of mania that I have ever had in my entire life. Quite literally felt like I lost my mind and I didn't notice. But the people around me notice. And it didn't really click until one of my really good friends, who also deals with mental health issues, said to me you know, lina, maybe you should talk to your doctor and get this looked into, because you don't seem right. So to have her say that to me when we have had so many discussions like I'm talking about me and this girl we are just very transparent with one another. I know the way she thinks and she knows the way I think so for her to tell me I needed to go to my doctor, I was like, okay, there's something, maybe. Maybe I do need to get this checked out.

Speaker 1: 19:53

I kept feeling like there was something medically wrong with me. So I went to my you know, my what do you call that? My actual doctor, my, whatever the doctor that checks to see if you're sick or not. And she ran so many tests on me and everything kept coming back normal. That was also an indication that I literally was losing my mind, and that's what mental health does to you it makes you think there's got to be something more. It can't possibly be all in my head and it makes you feel like you're crazy.

Speaker 1: 20:31

So now that I knew it was nothing physical, I started to realize that there was a lot of mental work for me to do. I realized how much of a toll all of this had taken on me, and I didn't even know it. So I took a leave from my job. As I took a leave from my job, some more stuff came about with my job, so I ended up being out of work and I couldn't physically work. So I was really, honestly, it felt like rock bottom because I felt like I have no job, I don't live necessarily what I would like to live. My health is not great and I'm having to deal with still the heartbreak that I'm going through, still wanting and hoping that by some miracle, my family will be together again, hoping and waiting for the other side to basically make changes and decisions in order for me to move forward.

Speaker 1: 21:46

It was just a lot going on and I remember a friend said to me I was crying and I was upset and they said to me you know, there's some things that you're going to have to deal with on your own. And at first I'm not gonna lie I was mad because I'm like what are you talking about? I've been dealing with stuff alone like my whole life. But I realized that I have never dealt with anything on my own and that doesn't necessarily mean I was dealing with it with another person, but I was dealing with it with habits, with distractions and no funny because I feel like this has been the worst, best year of my life. The worst because my family means absolutely everything to me. The worst because the person I thought I would spend my life with is no longer a part of my life. They are just a person in my life. Hard, because I feel like I am starting over completely and I am 35. And I feel, by the standards of the world, I should not be starting over. If anything, I should be, you know, like close to the finish line or halfway there or something, but those are all like honestly minor issues.

Speaker 1: 23:37

Things change in life. Nothing is promised, and what happens to us in our life is not just based on our choices. They're also based on the choices of others, and that taught me that, no matter what is going on around me, no matter what choices people around me make people in my life make I have to have a foundation on which I can still stand on, and I didn't have that. And it has been the best year because of everything I have gained and, more importantly, everything that I have gained I can't lose. I have gained real love for myself.

Speaker 1: 24:21

I have learned to love the things about me that I have always hated. I have learned to forgive myself. I've learned to forgive others. I have learned my worth. I've learned patience. I have learned to truly be grateful, to truly be grateful for the little things in life, to find joy in even the smallest things and to choose joy. I have learned to, instead of crying and whining about what's wrong with my life, to instead appreciate the things that haven't gone as planned, and growing and learning from them and sharing them with other people who might be walking through something similar or the same. I've learned that everything is not about me, it's not about my feelings, it's not about what I have, what I don't have. I have learned to stop being a victim of my past. One of the best things that I've gained this year is I have truly, truly come to learn who I am. I know my strengths, I know my weaknesses. I know what I can and cannot handle. I know situations that I can and cannot be in. I have learned who I have to love from a distance. I have learned that not everything needs a response. It's amazing the peace that you get when you understand who you are, and I believe when you understand who you are, you can better understand those around you and who they are.

Speaker 1: 26:12

I remember the first time I realized I had peace. I was sitting in my living room, I think I was watching TV, I had just cleaned the house and I guess my kids were either not here or they were asleep. But I was just by myself and I looked around my very small apartment and I just thought man, thank you God, thank you for everything that I have at this moment, thank you for being able to sit here and literally not be worried about anything, and not because nothing was going on, but because I knew, no matter what it was, it was going to be okay and I had accepted that there's things that I just can't change and I didn't want to continue to allow things that I can't change to affect me for the rest of my life. I learned to just be happy in the moment and thankful for that moment. I would love to say that I don't have hard days. Everything is peaches and cream. I wake up with a smile on my face every day, but that's not realistic and that's not real. But what I can tell you is that every day I wake up and I'm thankful. I am thankful that I get to see my little baby girl's face, her smile. I'm thankful I have a roof. I'm thankful I have a way to get around and I'm thankful that I have peace.

Speaker 1: 27:52

No matter what life throws at me, it can't shake me because of who is holding me up, because of who has the strength when I don't, because of who loves me, because of who guides me, listens to me, no matter what, doesn't judge me, just pushes me to be better for me so that I can walk through all this and still be okay. There's a lot of things I still am learning, there's a lot of things I'm still trying to improve in, and even the things that I have learned doesn't mean I have them down, it just means I'm more aware of them. I have learned the things that I do that I didn't even realize that I was doing, and just being aware of that is the first step in itself, because if I didn't know it, then I wouldn't be able to fix it, nor, you know, would I even care to. So what it's been like a year since my baptism. It's been a lot of learning. It's been a lot of letting go. It's been a lot of acceptance, a lot of faith and a lot of letting go. It's been a lot of acceptance, a lot of faith and a lot of hope. It's been a lot of falling to my knees and simply saying I cannot do it anymore and him saying, yes, you can, and me getting back up. But I've never given up and I have never left his side, not once. Even through my tears, even through my anger, even through the mistakes that I have made, I would still be there, talking to him, asking for forgiveness, asking for him to help me do better.

Speaker 1: 29:44

One of the reasons I wanted to share this is because I feel like a lot of us don't feel like we can be honest and open once we give our life over to God on our struggles, and we feel like if we say that we're struggling with something or we have things going on in our lives or we have vices that we're struggling with, that we will be looked at as if we're not being faithful, we're not praying, we're not, you know, we're not close to God, and that's simply not true. We're all in different places. Some of us have walked through more things in life than others in a short amount of time. Some of us are able to see things quicker than others, and some of us are ready and some of us are not, and sometimes we're ready to give some stuff up, but other stuff is harder.

Speaker 1: 30:47

No matter what your circumstances are, the only advice I can give you is don't let other people make you feel guilt or ashamed or ashamed. We're up to a point where you would walk away from God because you think he feels the same way, because he doesn't. Only you and God know what your relationship is Be honest with yourself, have self-awareness. One year down, a lifetime to go. He never said it would be easy. He only said it would be worth it. I can tell you by personal experience it's most definitely worth it, because what I have today is something I thought I would never have the fact that I wake up each day and can say thank you. That in itself that's enough for me for the rest of my life, because I was a person that would dread waking up. I would open my eyes and I would just be like damn it, because I was hoping the day before would be my last. And that was my life since I was 15 years old. Yeah, you just can't buy that type of relief and peace. So even if that's the only thing I gain in life from walking with God, I don't wake up with that empty feeling. I don't have a void in my life. I'm telling you I would do this all over again. I would do, I would do the heartbreak, I would do the loss, I would do it all, because not even when I thought my life was quote unquote perfect did I ever have that type of peace. Never, and I don't have to worry that someone else's choices will take that away from me.

Speaker 1: 32:46

I pray for anyone who is going through anything right now. I pray for anyone who is hurting, whose heart's been broken by whatever circumstance not just romantic, anything by anyone who's been disappointed. I pray for anyone who currently really hates themselves, who walks around heavy, who is filled with anger, resentment. I truly pray that you will find the peace that you are looking for, that you will find the love for yourself, that you can see all of the good that is in you and embrace. That you don't have to be the person that your circumstances made you become. You don't have to live with the heaviness of hate inside of you. There is good and bad in everyone. It's your choice which side you lean on. I pray that everything, or anything, even just one line of everything that I have shared today is something that someone needed to hear. I just want to remind you God loves you. You're enough, you're built for this, and until next time, have a good night. You better check yourself before you break yourself. You better check yourself before you break yourself.