TO BE HONEST THOUGH..
On Sunday 6th August I publically declared my faith and got baptized. It was an amazing feeling opening myself up in front of so many people and just being dead real with them about why I believe what I believe and how I got to the point of being baptized. Much of this was done through my testimony which I shared a couple of weeks back on Sarah's blog, Falling into You. If you haven't read it I would encourage you to give it a little looksie.
For those of you who don't know what baptism is it's when someone publically declares their faith and identifies with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection. It is also pegged as "an outward sign of an inward change." I didn't become a Christian because I got baptized. I became a Christian when I recommitted my life to God last September. My baptism just literally shows that to the world. If you're still confused here's a site that explains it better than I ever will.
The whole week leading up to my baptism I was low key freaking out. Not about the actual baptism. Not about the public speaking but about what I was actually going to say to all these people. How I wasn' just gonna say "hey I got depressed and was suicidal" but instead share with them how I had actually planned it all out. How one day on the way from school I was going to run in front of a bus and kill myself. I don't know about you but I find that to be pretty heavy stuff; if someone came up to me and said that I would freak out, how do you even react to something like that? And that's the thing I HATE about our world how it's so taboo to talk about what you're going through and how you're struggling, especially if it's dark and surrounded by mental health. Yes, there are more and more ways to get help but that's only once you open up about it?? Because the fact is no matter how many psychologists and counselors there are out there, there will ALWAYS be the stigma that mental health isn't something we talk about. And if we do only lightly. Why is it okay for you to post on Facebook about how "your aunt has stage four cervical cancer and may only have a few days to live, so please pray for her and your family" but it's not okay for your friend to post about how she's falling apart, slipping into the downward spiral and she doesn't know if she'll ever make it out alive. If she does that she'll be labeled as 'attention seeking' and 'weird' but you and your aunty; everyone will tell you how "sorry they are" and how you're "definitely in their thoughts". Why is one okay and the other not? What happened to being honest? Most people admire the quality of honesty but as soon as someone's overly honest some how they're in the wrong? What is it that makes them wrong? You're probably sitting there asking yourself why I put all that in my testimony if I knew that?
Well when I sat down to write my testimony I knew full well that the thing about writing a story, even if it’s a seemingly true story, is that you can cut out the parts you don’t like, you can hide all the messy parts and instead portray to the world the image they thought they had all along. I could have made my life seem all like rainbows and lollipops could have done that. I would have done that. However if you hadn't already guessed I'm totally against staying quiet about your struggles, especially if they're threatening your life. SO when I sat down to write my testimony I sat down to be real. I sat down, to tell the truth. Because if I'm not going to how can i expect others to?? The whole idea of being real is something that's become very important to me over the past couple of months. You can read how I came to that conclusion here. It actually all turned out okay, in the end, I just said what I had written and got baptized and that was that. Really not as stressful as everyone made it out to be.
Sorry, today's post turned into a mini rant about the thought patterns of the world, but I'd be super keen to hear your thoughts on this topic!! You can either subtly slide into my DMs or comment below. Hope you have a super fab week!!
Til next time
XO lavinia
For those of you who don't know what baptism is it's when someone publically declares their faith and identifies with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection. It is also pegged as "an outward sign of an inward change." I didn't become a Christian because I got baptized. I became a Christian when I recommitted my life to God last September. My baptism just literally shows that to the world. If you're still confused here's a site that explains it better than I ever will.
The whole week leading up to my baptism I was low key freaking out. Not about the actual baptism. Not about the public speaking but about what I was actually going to say to all these people. How I wasn' just gonna say "hey I got depressed and was suicidal" but instead share with them how I had actually planned it all out. How one day on the way from school I was going to run in front of a bus and kill myself. I don't know about you but I find that to be pretty heavy stuff; if someone came up to me and said that I would freak out, how do you even react to something like that? And that's the thing I HATE about our world how it's so taboo to talk about what you're going through and how you're struggling, especially if it's dark and surrounded by mental health. Yes, there are more and more ways to get help but that's only once you open up about it?? Because the fact is no matter how many psychologists and counselors there are out there, there will ALWAYS be the stigma that mental health isn't something we talk about. And if we do only lightly. Why is it okay for you to post on Facebook about how "your aunt has stage four cervical cancer and may only have a few days to live, so please pray for her and your family" but it's not okay for your friend to post about how she's falling apart, slipping into the downward spiral and she doesn't know if she'll ever make it out alive. If she does that she'll be labeled as 'attention seeking' and 'weird' but you and your aunty; everyone will tell you how "sorry they are" and how you're "definitely in their thoughts". Why is one okay and the other not? What happened to being honest? Most people admire the quality of honesty but as soon as someone's overly honest some how they're in the wrong? What is it that makes them wrong? You're probably sitting there asking yourself why I put all that in my testimony if I knew that?
Well when I sat down to write my testimony I knew full well that the thing about writing a story, even if it’s a seemingly true story, is that you can cut out the parts you don’t like, you can hide all the messy parts and instead portray to the world the image they thought they had all along. I could have made my life seem all like rainbows and lollipops could have done that. I would have done that. However if you hadn't already guessed I'm totally against staying quiet about your struggles, especially if they're threatening your life. SO when I sat down to write my testimony I sat down to be real. I sat down, to tell the truth. Because if I'm not going to how can i expect others to?? The whole idea of being real is something that's become very important to me over the past couple of months. You can read how I came to that conclusion here. It actually all turned out okay, in the end, I just said what I had written and got baptized and that was that. Really not as stressful as everyone made it out to be.
Sorry, today's post turned into a mini rant about the thought patterns of the world, but I'd be super keen to hear your thoughts on this topic!! You can either subtly slide into my DMs or comment below. Hope you have a super fab week!!
Til next time
XO lavinia