How Jesus Changed Me: Clayton Collins Story

Clayton was baptized on May 4th at Trinity Park Pavilion in front of The Paradox Church. This is his story:Foundation metaphors come up a lot in Christianity; how you need a strong foundation in order to weather the storm or have your house stand over time. My life is living proof of that analogy. Before I met Christ, I put all my faith in myself or in others. Even though I grew up in church and believed God existed, I had no relationship with Him and did not understand who Christ was or that He died for my sins. I made myself and those around me idols and when things got difficult, my life fell apart, because as much as I wanted them to, people couldn’t take the place of God.The earlier years of my life were really hard. My father was an alcoholic and my mother struggled to take care of us. Mental illness runs in my family and as I grew older, I developed really severe anxiety and depression. I was in and out of therapy for much of my young adult life and I was ashamed of who I was, feeling emasculated because I couldn’t stand on my own two feet. I resented God, because I could not understand why He would make me this way, and so I put others in God’s place, idolizing them. I began to cling to those around me, trying to find purpose and happiness in another person. This wreaked havoc on my relationships, because when I had someone I was dating, I was able to function normally, but I was so reliant on a significant other that it became more of a survival tactic than genuinely caring for another person. This led me to date people I shouldn’t have been involved with, and I sacrificed values and morals that were important to me because I needed comfort and a break from my own misery. I knew the life I was living was not what I wanted and not who I had always hoped I would be, but I couldn’t dig myself out when I was struggling just to make it to the next day. I would feel really guilty and wouldn’t quite understand why, attributing my guilt to a big conscience and not realizing God was behind me, letting me know my actions were wrong and wanting me to turn back to Him.It was somewhere in the midst of this that Jesus came and got me. I had just gone through a big breakup and for the first time in years, I wasn’t surrounded by quite as much sin and depression. I remember feeling overwhelmed by the need to read the Bible and find out who God was for myself. I don’t remember anyone actually preaching the Gospel to me; it all happened internally and suddenly. The only explanation I have is that God all but physically picked me up, brushed me off, and turned me back to Him. As soon as I read the Gospels, I was in awe of who Jesus was and is. I couldn’t believe I had lived my whole life hearing about the person of Jesus and never actually knew who He was. His authority and compassion are amazing. The closer I got to Him, the more I wanted. It was only a few weeks before I made the conscious decision to give my life to Jesus, but I am continually challenged to lay myself down at the foot of the cross on a daily basis.In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus says to take His yoke, and that He will provide rest for our souls. He doesn’t say that He will remove our struggles entirely, but that He will help us carry our burdens. Once Jesus took His rightful place as the Lord of my life, everything changed. Having a gracious and loving God as my authority breathed more life into me than any worldly solution to my suffering. Life is still hard, but I am filled with the joy that comes from knowing that my life is built on the rock that is Jesus Christ. When people I knew before I met Christ see me now, they can barely recognize me. The selfish, sinful, and shameful person I used to be died on the cross with Jesus. He bore my shame and redeemed me, and He holds me up every day. No strength of my own could have conquered my illness and changed me the way I have been changed. It was God, and God alone, who has redeemed me. Because of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, I was saved from a life of misery and sin and given an inheritance of eternal joy, and in response I will forever worship my Lord. I am honored to be baptized in His name.