Baptism Story: Isaac Dickey

Aug 22, 2019 | by Brad Sumner

"My name is Isaac and this is my story.

I grew up in a Christian family. My father was a pastor at the church we attended. Like most kids at that age, I didnʼt understand how faith worked. My family always talked about it and I always just followed them.

At the age of 9, we moved to a new area. Through middle school I suffered mental and physical abuse from other students which developed into a mental instability. High school was where I really started to drift away from God. My school didnʼt have any Christians in it so I began to suppress my faith. I began to become more like the people I was around everyday. I developed bad habits such as drug and alcohol addictions, violence towards others, and gambling.

These things furthered my struggles with anxiety and depression and ended up leading to a rash of suicide attempts. I finally decided that a change was needed after a cocaine fueled altercation with someone I thought was my friend.

That situation led me back to God and God led me back to Jericho Ridge. Iʼm so grateful that he has led me back here. For the first time in years, I am in a positive and encouraging environment full of incredible people. God has blessed me with an amazing and supportive group of friends....

My reasoning behind being baptized today is that I see this as a restart to my life. I want to leave my darkness filled past behind and move on to a future of having a relationship with Jesus...This baptism is a public declaration of my faith and my commitment to being a follower of Jesus. I followed it as a child because I followed what my parents did. But this is me saying that this is my choice now to follow God."