Take Back Your Health

Returning to the Water

Last year, I stood in the water at the Real Talk Kim conference and got baptized. It wasn't my first baptism. But it was the first time baptism grew out of an actual relationship, a mentor who could see past my armor and into the layers I'd spent decades building.
I grew up in a house with violence and alcoholism. There was no safety there, no place to put down my guard. So I learned early not to trust. At thirteen, I left home. And here's what nobody tells you about leaving home that young: it doesn't just make you independent. It makes you proud. It makes you critical. It makes you someone who, if you're "successful" by the world's measure, will never let anyone in. Not God. Not people. Not even the ones closest to you.
Last year, when I walked into that conference, I was separated from my husband. My independence, my high standards, my pride, my critical nature, all of it played a part. Not the whole part. It's never one hundred percent one person. But my part was real, and I couldn't keep pretending otherwise.
That weekend cracked something open. And this is the part I want you to hear: it wasn't a moment, it was a beginning. Pastor Kim didn't hand me a fix. She handed me a mirror and walked with me while I finally looked into it. Over this past year, I've been sifting. Sifting through the pride. Sifting through the walls I built at thirteen to survive a house that wasn't safe. Sifting through what it means to actually let someone in.
The growth hasn't stayed in one lane. It's touched my marriage. It's touched how I sit across from a patient and listen for what's underneath their symptoms, because I know now how much of what we carry in the body started somewhere else, in the soul, in a story nobody asked about. It's changed how I show up in every room I walk into.
This weekend, I'm going back. Not because I arrived somewhere and need a refresher. Because this was never a destination. It's a journey, and I am so grateful to still be on it. I'm expectant, too. Expectant that the Holy Spirit isn't finished, that Pastor Kim and this community still have more to draw out of me, that there's more sifting to do.
And once again, I'll leave it all in the water.