“Do you trust me?”

Right now, im writing to you guys from the passenger seat of my jam packed little Nissan around 4 hours into my 13 hour drive back to good old Dallas Baptist University in Texas. How I managed to fit not only all my clothes and shoes in here on top of three family members beats me, but to say the least, we are getting realll close. And not gonna lie, 13 hours of driving gives you a lot of time to sit and think. So I figured why not pull out my laptop and share some of my thoughts with y'all.

According to my GPS, I’m somewhere in New Mexico, but honestly it just feels like a long ways away from home. I’m looking all around and all I see is just grass on grass on grass with your occasional cow or horse thrown in there, and no matter how hard I look, my beautiful mountains are long gone.

I’m in that part of my roadtrip where I’m kinda just in the middle of nowhere, and if any of y’all have made the trip from Colorado to Texas you know exactly what I mean. According to my GPS, I’m somewhere in New Mexico, but honestly you could tell me I was in Kansas and I would believe you just as much. And that’s kinda a scary feeling. I know that if it weren’t for my GPS telling me where I am or where to go next, that I would probably end up crying in the fetal position on the side of the road with no way to know how to get to where I am trying to go. It’s like this awkard middle area where you are putting full faith in this computer to take you hundreds of miles across the country to another state, and that’s just absolutely crazy to me. Maybe it’s just me, but there is something somewhat daunting about traveling into the unknown, praying and trusting that my GPS knows what it’s doing and that it is gonna take me right where I am supposed to go. Maybe it’s because I’m directionally challenged, or maybe it’s because the unknown is a little scary, but it was reminding me a lot of what life feels like right now.

Honestly life right now kinda feels like im traveling completely blind in the middle of nowhere hoping and praying that I’m gonna end up where I am supposed to be. Usually that’s the case with freshman year, but honestly I think besides for having the same roommate (love ya Mal), just about everything is different or new in one way or another going into this year. Beginning this semester, I will have officially switched from the Education program to pursuing a degree in Psychology which honestly is a pretty drastic change in the “life plan” that I thought I had mapped out for myself. Along with that, I’ll be starting a brand new job on campus that didn’t exist prior to around two weeks ago, which led to me somehow getting interviewed and hired all the way in Colorado in around the time span of a week and a half. And if I’m being honest, starting a new job that is not only new to you but to everyone else also is both crazy and exciting and a little scary all at the same time. Yet I know without a doubt that everything about this job has God’s fingerprints all over it and that this job is exactly where I am meant to be. Also, to throw a wild card in there, I’m moving into brand new housing with amazing new people (which was another super last minute God thing that fell into place), but I found out a few weeks ago I will have to move into off campus housing temporarily due to construction delays and commute for the first three weeks of classes…ya know just to mix things up even a little more. Oh yeah, and to ice the cake, I’m bringing my car down to Texas and will for the first time try and navigate the Texas highways with drivers that I’m pretty sure never actually passed a legitament driving test. So to say the least…I have no idea what I’m getting myself into.

With all of that currently on the horizon, everyone has been asking me “are you ready to go back?” “Are you nervous?” “are you excited?” and “are you ready for all the change?”, and to be honest I struggle to just readily say yes when I really have no idea what lies ahead, especially when it feels like it’s my entire future on the line. The reality is that I don’t know what lies ahead this semester, let alone this month or even next week. And at times it’s hard to not just want to not freak out about all the uncertainty and change that lies ahead when im currently driving 75mph towards this uncharted territory. It’s hard to slow down and remember that just like on the GPS, sometimes God only lets me know where I am meant to be in the present, but not every detail about where I am going, and that I have to trust Him to get me where I am supposed to go, even if that’s not where I had in mind.

Honestly, when it comes to my relationship with God, I feel like our relationship is one of constant unexpected surprises and crazy, spur of the moment, last minute, doesn’t make sense to the world kind of decisions and adventures. I mean, I decided to move to Texas to go to college after having only been in the state for 48 hours because God told me to. And boy, this last year has been nothing less than absolutely insane in the best way imaginable. For the first time in my life I understood what mercy looked like, and was able to extend it not only to others but to myself for the first time. For the first time, I heard that not only was I fully known but fully loved by the God of the universe-and that nothing could change that. I made friends that showered me in God’s love when I didn’t know how to love myself and who made me feel accepted and loved for who I am in my rawest form. I had the opportunity to share my full testimony with over 15 college girls which is a part of me I had never shared with another soul prior to then. And with that I experienced freedom and joy that I didn’t know was possible. Through those times, I came to realize a lot of brokenness and pain that had been buried away and neglected in the past that was affecting not only my present but my future. In that I sought out counseling for the first time and experiencing healing and growth in a God that meets us in our brokenness and scars. And there in counseling came a humbling and life altering realization that I am can offer up nothing but dirty rags with my sinful hands to my Creator, yet He still chose me, in all my mess and brokenness and fighting, He chose me and died on the cross for my sinful self. All because of a love so deep and crazy that it would be seen reckless in the eyes of the world, yet in reality was the truest act of love this world has ever seen.

It was then that everything changed for me.

I realized at the end of the day, I wanted nothing more than for others to experience this same love that changed my life and set me free, and I wanted to live everyday for the One who sacrificed everything for me.

If we are being honest with ourselves, few people in this world see seeking God first above all else as an ultimate goal for their life, because that isn’t seen as a successful life in the eyes of many. In our world today, society says that if you didn’t go to college then you are doing it wrong, or if you are over 30 and don’t have a house, husband, and kids then there is something wrong with you. Or if you’ve screwed up and maybe chased the wrong things for a while that your life is completely over. But I’ve never heard anything further truth, yet it’s still one of the greatest lies that we feed into. And not gonna lie, when I came to Texas last year, many people questioned why I had to do it and even told me I wouldn’t make it. And being honest it wasn’t easy being hundreds of miles away from anyone that I knew in a new state with no car or honestly any idea where I was. I felt so lost, but God guided me into all kinds of things I could have never imagined for myself and my life. But that doesn’t mean things were suddenly easy and perfect, in fact they are far from that still, but I was constantly reminded of my identity and purpose every step of the way. This world makes us feel like if we drop out of college we are failures or if we switch majors that we don’t know what we are doing, or that if we don’t know what we want to do with a degree we are paying thousands of dollars for then we are crazy. They expect us to have out life “together” and “all figured out” in our teens and early twenties, yet many of them still struggle to know their identity and purpose in this world. As we all have at times.

See God reminded me this summer that at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you’ve switched your major once or five times, if you’re going to college or not or if you still don’t know what you want to do with your life yet, if you’re 18 and single or if you’re 55 and single, if you’re struggling to even make ends meet or if you feel like you just can’t catch a break, at the end of the day, None of these things make up who you are or your purpose in this life. And once you realize that, the future suddenly becomes a lot less scary.

I realized I was so scared of the unknown because I have often thought I knew what was best for me. A little over a year ago I thought I knew where I would go to college and what I would do with my life, I thought I had it all figured out. Literally up to the point of retirement. But then God went and threw one of His unexpected twists at me and it changed everything. For all of y’all Disney fans, I almost imagine it like that scene in Aladdin where he is hovering in mid-air on a magic carpet only to extend his hand to Jasmine and ask her, “do you trust me?” super cheesy, I know. But something I’ve always been told is that God is such a gentleman, and a gentleman will never force you or pressure you to do anything you don’t want to do. But if you just say Yes to God, even when it may not make sense or may require stepping off into the unknown, the impossible suddenly becomes possible. And the world will watch as He promises not only to have a plan for you, but to have one greater than we could ever ask or imagine, if we would just trust Him.

If we would just let go.

If we would just not care about what the world thought,

If we would just say yes,

And trust that He will take us exactly where we are supposed to go.

This past Sunday, I was really scared to say yes to God. I was so worried about what those around me would think and how it would be difficult and an inconvenience to say yes to God that I almost missed out on one of the most special and most joyful moments I’ve ever experienced in my life. This past Sunday at my church was Baptism Sunday, and as you could assume, it was a day where people had planned to get baptized. See, that morning, I woke up and expected it to just be a regular Sunday morning. That I would hear a pretty feel good motivational message and then go and do something with my family cause it was my last Sunday in Colorado, but God had other things in store. That Sunday morning the service went pretty normal for the most part besides for the big swimming pool by the stage. Nothing was out of the ordinary until the ending of the sermon came. The room went dark and they began playing a video of a women who had recently been baptized at our church. If I’m being honest, I didn’t think much of it at first and was actually not super focused on it, until I heard her say the words that put a giant knot in my stomach...“don’t make it so complicated, just say yes”. Suddenly it was like something broke in me and the Holy Spirit was convicting me big time. See, I had been baptized when I was 10, but had yet to really choose to pursue God as a priority first in my life at that age. It was more of a declaration that I loved God rather than declaring to the world that a change had taken place. However, after all that God had done in me this past year at DBU, I had been feeling all summer that He was telling me to get rebaptized as a declaration of the change that had taken place in my life. And I knew I had to do it. After trying to come up with every excuse possible for why I couldn’t get baptized on Sunday, whether it was my makeup or I didn’t have a change of clothes, God was ready for all my excuses. The pastor came on stage and announced that if we were feeling led to get baptized right then that they had spare changes of clothes in the back and would continue to play music until every heart that was feeling led to get baptized would have the chance to declare what God has done in their life. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get what that woman said out of my head, “Don’t make it so complicated, just say yes”. Before I knew it, I was standing up and looked at my mom with a lump in my throat and tears welling in my eyes. I knew what I had to do. Next thing I remember is being rushed to the back of the church to change into clothes and being brought to the front of the church by the same pastor who had actually first told me about DBU. There I was, heart pounding, so nervous but so excited, literally doing everything I could to hold in the tears until at least I was in the pool. I looked into the crowd to all my family who happened to be there that Sunday, and could feel their love and support cheering me on to do something I wouldn’t have ever imagined myself doing a year ago. As I stared on, I saw one person after another getting baptized and with every baptism came an eruption of applause and cheering from the rest of the church. Next thing I knew, I was at the front of the line. Before I stepped into the pool, I looked down at the shirt that I was given just a few minutes before, and inside the picture of a water droplet were the words “I said yes”. And I knew that all of Heaven was cheering me on. Before I knew it, I was in the pool and being baptized by my head pastor. And the next thing I remember is the entire congregation cheering and applauding and I was smiling so big that my face hurt. Honestly I probably looked a little bit crazy, and ya know I would be happy to look a little bit crazy cause of how in love and in awe I am with my Creator. in that moment I felt so much joy and peace and excitement, just so close to Him. I guess it doesn’t really make sense but it’s a kind of feeling you just can’t really explain. Just knowing that this was a testimony of what God had done in my life, bringing me from death to life, making me a new creation. And although it was my church cheering, it felt like I could hear all of heaven cheering too, knowing that they had seen my entire journey thus far and all the “yeses” it took to get me here.

For many of us, I believe we do love God. But we have only given Him bits and parts of us. For me, His love was something I always struggled to understand the concept of. I thought love was circumstantial, based off of performance. I understood that He loved me, and I couldn’t change that, but I always believed I could grow His love for me by the way I lived. And considering I had thought I was a pretty good person, I believed in a sense that I had a “right” or “deserved” His love. And wow did I have it wrong. I thought that His love was largely dependent upon me and my merit, but at the end of the day that He “had to” love me. Love was a religion to me. A social concept. But the true love, the love that He has for me, I’ve discovered is a love that is vulnerable. I really couldn’t say I loved Him without letting Him have ALL of me, all of my heart. For so many years, I had only willingly given Him control of certain parts of my life, never all of it. But that’s the thing, You can’t do that “half-hearted” thing with Him, He doesn’t take nor deserve your scraps. His love for you is jealous, and it desires the attention and “love” we so willingly give to all the temporal distractions of this world. He wants all of you, the mess and sinful human brokenness included, He wants it all. See, that same Sunday morning, as the service was coming to a close, I had pulled out my money to put in the offering as everyone else was getting ready to get baptized. However after service I noticed my $20 bill still laying neatly in my purse, untouched, having never made it to the offering plate. In that moment God told me something I will never forget. He said, “Selena, I didn’t want you to offer your money, I wanted you. All of you. To surrender not only yourself but your life to me, and to show the world the change that has taken place.” That day, God wanted more than just money, He wanted all of me. And it has been something He has been fighting for for years. That is why that moment I rose from the water I felt nothing but pure joy because I was just so happy I could do even something as small as that to declare my love and my life to God. No baptism didn’t save me, but it was a declaration that my God did.

To say the least, Sunday was a really special day in my life that I will never forget. As soon as I got baptized, that smile and glow didn’t leave for a long time, and I honestly pray that they never will. I pray that I will never become apathetic to the power that lies in just trusting God enough to say yes. I pray for all of us that we never settle for a life defined by the success of the world but a life defined by the unimaginable, only possible with God, surrendering everything to Him. I know that this past year, God completely changed my life. And for the first time in 18 years I experienced FREEDOM and what TRUE love really means, and for the first time I realized how much I really don’t deserve it, yet I was still freely given it. God is so so good, and am in awe of Him, all I can say is thank you God. Thank you for this new life, this new hope, this new song I have to sing, and making me a new creation. I can’t wait to see what He has planned for this year, let alone this life, because I know that as long as I say “yes” i can trust Him to take me exactly where I am supposed to be.

I am choosing to say “yes”.

will you?