Jesus Happened to me.

If you would’ve asked me five years ago, “Baylor, are you a Christian?”, I would’ve answered with a loud and confident “YES!”. I was leading a weekly girls bible study, attending church every once in a while (when my “schedule” allowed it), and I had already been baptized so obviously I was a Christian… right?  But then one day, a college friend invited me to a worship night.

I was in a very toxic relationship, living in full blown sin with a boy, and tormented by demons I didn’t know existed. I was lost but thought I was found.

I was signed to a country music publishing company, pursuing a music career, and doing whatever I had to do to “make it” here in Nashville. My daily life at that time looked like waking up, driving to Music Row, writing country songs about break ups and drama and drinking, going out at night and drinking, and waking up and doing it all over again. 

But then one day, I was sitting in a coffee shop and a friend of mine I hadn’t seen since college came walking in and as we were catching up, she invited me to a worship night she had been going to. It sounded like fun however, it was on a friday night and friday’s were usually blocked out for my social life. For whatever reason though, I showed up that Friday and as I pulled up to the address she sent me,

I realized I was parking at an auto body car shop.

The people hosting the worship night didn’t have a building or anything so they were meeting at a car shop, of all places. I still remember walking in and hearing the sound… the sound of worship. True worship. I had heard Christian music on and off my entire life but this didn’t sound anything like that. This sounded like their voices were actually worshiping a God who was in the room.  As the night went on, they preached the gospel, and the atmosphere was filled with God’s holiness and salvation.

I’m pretty sure I cried every ounce of mascara I had on because I was encountering the Presence of God for the first time ever.

It felt like a cozy weighted blanket wrapping around me combined with a firework explosion of love in the room. I still remember seeing the woman leading worship for the first time and the amount of fiery love in her eyes was overwhelming and nothing like I had ever experienced. After that night, I returned back to my country music co-writing life and I had zero interest in writing country songs. All I wanted to do was worship and write songs to Jesus. I made fun of worship music weeks before this encounter, and after this night all I wanted to do was worship Jesus because I had met Him. The real Him.

My group of friends and everyone I worked with in music looked at me like I was crazy when I said I wanted to start singing Christian music… It truly felt like I had a Saul to Paul conversion. One moment, I was living in unrepentant sin, and the next I was surrendering my entire life, desires, dreams, goals, and ambitions to Jesus.

They would ask me, “What happened to you, Baylor?” And my response shortened to two words: “Jesus Happened.” 

I started to actually read the Bible for hours and hours and I felt like the words were jumping off the pages and into my heart. Not even a month or two later, I was praying in my car outside my house and I started to have an open vision of Jesus sitting in my passenger seat. He was looking at me with so much love and care and concern. He said, “Will you let me drive?” insinuating that He wanted to be in the driver’s seat of my life. Once we switched seats, He reached into His chest and pulled out His heart, bloody and beating, and handed it to me across the console and said, “You can have Mine if I can have yours.” That day, I opened my bible to Ezekiel 36 and read, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

These types of encounters and visions and dreams started happening regularly and I got re-baptized because now being a Christian wasn’t just a box I checked off but a reality I was living in. I was now SAVED. Since then,

I’ve been delivered of a spirit of Jezebel, self pity, spirit of trauma, PTSD, many generational curses, loneliness, discouragement, anxiety, rage, selfishness, independence, and sooooo much more.

I was healed of sexual abuse and years of sadness from my family’s dysfunction by FORGIVING my abusers becasue I’ve been forgiven. All of this to say, I was one way BUT GOD had mercy on me and showed me HE was the Way and now I live to bring Him glory. My Jesus story wouldn’t be possible without my pastors who have laid their lives down to feed the sheep, set the captives free by PREACHING THE FULL GOSPEL!  Thank You Jesus for my Church, Eyes On Jesus Nashville!!!!! 

With Love,

Baylor