I Thought Christianity Was for Weak Minded People - Christina Baer

The pastor comes up and he prays, and he prays for joy. Hmm. And it made me cry. And Sam opens his eyes at the end of the prayer, and he looks at me, and I actually have tears rolling down my face, which is very surprising because I don't cry very easily, especially in public. And so we go home, and we have lunch, and we put our children down for naps, and he goes, "What was that about? Why were you crying?" And I said, "Well, the pastor was praying about joy." And of course, Sam knew that I suffered from depression, and I've been searching for joy my whole life. And so Sam goes, "Well, I know how you can find that joy."

Well, Christina, welcome to the podcast. So we're going to get some of your story today, and let's just start at the beginning because, if I understand right, you weren't necessarily raised in a Christian home. Tell me about your upbringing. Did you have any kind of religious background? And yeah, start at the beginning there. Sure. I was raised in the city of Calgary. I was raised by a mom and a dad that both grew up in a Catholic home, but they didn't practice that at all, and there was no religion in our home. We didn't go to church or anything like that. My father did read children's Bible stories to my sister and I when we'd go to bed at night, but that's about it.

So I knew the popular ones, David and Goliath, and Samson really stuck out to me for some reason. And I heard about Jesus in those stories, but that's about it. And then my parents separated when I was nine years old, and along with that kind of went any sort of Bible talk. Yeah, from there I just, I grew up. I was mostly raised by my mom. It was my younger sister and I, and I was taught that I should pave my own way, that I need to be independent. I need to make my own money. Even if I get married and have children, which my mom always really wanted grandchildren, it was important that I was able to support myself just because of some of the things that happened to her in her life.

And yeah, that's how I was raised. So did you think about Christianity at all, or God, or it was, I mean, you hadn't read the Bible, I'm assuming. And how did you think about that? How did you think of Christianity?

I didn't really think about God. I do remember one time for sure when I was a child lying in bed at night and wondering if God created the world, then who created God? And that was confusing for me, and I couldn't figure it out, and I didn't have anyone to talk to. So in my own logical childish mind, I just decided that there couldn't be a God because it just didn't make sense to me.

And then I grew up, and that's kind of where I left it. I did think that religion, Christianity, was for weak-minded people. It was like a crutch for them to lean on, which is very ironic because I suffered from depression.

And that was something that happened when I was a teenager. I remember this one Christmas, my mom asked me what I want for Christmas, and I told her, "I just want to be happy." So throughout my life, there was this hole that I was trying to fill, and I had the mentality, "I'll be happy when." So I'll be happy when I get married. I'll be happy when I have children. I'll be happy when we're wealthy.

And these things happened. I got married, and I was happy for a little bit, but that hole never got filled. And that's just kind of how I lived my life. I tried different things. I tried meditation. I tried yoga.

I have a tattoo on my wrist to remind me to be strong mentally, but there was nothing really lasting. It was something that I always kind of struggled with my whole life. So somewhere in this process, you meet your husband, and he was an ex-Mennonite. Like, he left the Mennonite Church, left Christianity, and we'll be interviewing him later. But tell me about that. Like, was that the first time you'd encountered the Mennonites then, I assume? I mean, you had no connection to Christianity, really. So what was that like?

Yeah, one evening he showed me a photo album of his family, and the women were wearing cape dresses and white bonnet head coverings, and I never had seen anything like that before. And I looked at the photos and just kind of, "Oh, yeah, lovely," and smiled and went home, and I googled what's a Mennonite because I had no idea.

And the next day I went to work, and I talked to one of my really good friends there, and I was kind of freaking out, actually, that this is where Sam came from. And she talked me down and said, "It's okay. You know, I actually had some history with a Mennonite babysitter or something like that." And so she told me that it's fine and everything's okay.

I mean, it was probably a shock, though, right? I mean, if you have no context for what this is, like, wait, this is where he comes from? Yeah. Shortly after that, we went back to his home to meet his family. His younger brother was having a wedding reception, so I met all the family all at once.

And they were such lovely people. They were so warm and welcoming and lovely. I just, if you could look past the cape dresses and the head coverings, they were just people. And I was so pleasantly surprised by that. I thought maybe they would have to, they would be talking to me about Jesus and try to, you know, shove their religion down my throat, and they weren't at all. They were just loving and welcoming.

So you have almost no exposure to Christianity at this point, but somewhere that changed, I mean, obviously. So tell me about that process, or I'm assuming it was a process. How did you begin that journey? How did you come to the faith? Where did you encounter Christianity for the first time?

It wasn't actually a very long journey, and it was an unexpected one. At this point, Sam and I are married, and we have one son, and we moved to Cochrane. It's a town just outside of Calgary. And one day Sam asked, "Oh, should we go to church?" And I thought, "Absolutely not. I don't want to go to church." So he, okay, and he just left it. And then a few months later, he asked again, "Should we go to church?" He goes, "We can maybe meet friends there." Because we were in a new town, we didn't have a lot of friends. We were going from our old lifestyle with party friends and people like that. We wanted friends that had little children and have a different kind of life.

So I thought that, yes, that would be a great idea. Good people go to church. Let's go to church. So that Sunday we got ready and we went to church, and the sermon was about the love of God.

And it really spoke to me, which was really surprising. And all week long I thought about church, and I was looking forward to going back. So on Saturday, I asked Sam, "Are we going to go to church tomorrow?" And he goes, "Oh, I didn't really think about it, but yeah, sure, we'll go to church." So I was excited, and we get ready to go, and on Sunday we go to church again.

And there was a one-woman skit about the life of John Newton. And for those that don't know, John Newton was a man that was raised in the faith, had a very godly mother, and then he left the faith, and he became a slave trader, and he did some pretty vile, awful things.

And so I don't know this, but this little skit is speaking very much to Sam. At this point, he was reading the verse of the day on a Bible app that he downloaded. We now have our second child. We have another newborn baby girl, and he is believing that there is a God, and he doesn't want to tell our children that there's no God. He wants to tell them that there is a God. And so God's been working in his life, and this message or this little skit is speaking to Sam.

And then at the end of that, the pastor comes up and he prays, and he prays for joy. And it made me cry. And Sam opens his eyes at the end of the prayer, and he looks at me, and I actually have tears rolling down my face, which is very surprising because I don't cry very easily, especially in public. And so we go home, and we have lunch, and we put our children down for naps, and he goes, "What was that about? Why were you crying?" And I said, "Well, the pastor was praying about joy." And of course, Sam knew that I suffered from depression, and I've been searching for joy my whole life. And so Sam goes, "Well, I know how you can find that joy."

And so he talked to me a little bit about it, and then we prayed, and we decided right there, him and I together, we were going to follow Jesus Christ. So we got up, and we laughed, and we cried, and we jumped around our little dining room, and it changed everything.

That's incredible. Like, you've never went to church, really, until a few weeks before. That happened quickly. Very quickly. Had you even read the Bible at this point? No. So this story is pretty wild, actually, to have like so little exposure to Christianity and pretty quickly be able to identify this is the answer for a piece that's been missing throughout your life. I mean, what changes for you after this? Well, like I said, it changed everything. That hole that I was longing to fill was filled.

And we had new purpose. We had new values. Things like how we spent our time changed. We didn't watch TV anymore. You know, we used to spend a lot of time watching NFL football, especially with my mom and family. We'd go there every Sunday, and that just wasn't important anymore.

And so we stopped doing that. I stopped doing yoga. I stopped wearing makeup and wearing jewelry. We sold our wedding rings. And then I was reading, I put a head covering on, of course. I changed the way I dress.

And then I was reading the Bible for the first time, which was very amazing to read the Bible and see it through a clear lens and just take the words for what they said. And it was amazing to read Genesis and think, "I believe this now. God created the heavens and the earth. I believe that." That was really exciting.

And it was really exciting to read the words of Jesus Christ as well because they are life-giving and they are important, and it's what we base our lives on now. Yeah. There must have been something pretty special about that first time reading the Bible, right? Like, had you even owned a Bible or read any of it at this point? Like, this is all brand new. No. Sam had a Bible.

Interesting, actually. This one time before we were Christians, he, you know, he was going through some old things, and he had a Bible in his old Bible, and he went, "Well, what should I do with this? Should we get rid of it?" And I thought, "Well, no, you can't. We should have a Bible, I guess." I don't know why. And I'm so thankful that we said that because now he has his old Bible.

But anyway, I went to the store and bought a Bible, and I was so proud of my Bible. And yeah, it was very important to me. I remember just reading and reading. I'm pretty sure I read through the whole Bible in the first year. Oh, wow. Maybe there were some Psalms that I didn't fully get through, but yeah, it was important. It was life-giving.

So you're having all of these changes in life, but that's also making you different from the rest of your family. Tell me about that. How did that go? Was that a challenge for you? Yes, it was hard. It was hard at first when we first started going to church. It was hard, definitely hard when I put on a head covering.

And it was even more hard when I changed my attire.

But I must do what's honorable to God, and I do things for His glory and for His purpose, not for man. So even though it was difficult, I felt that it was very important that I do what I feel convicted to do. And time has helped a lot, though.

At the beginning, it was very difficult, and now through the years, which it hasn't been that long, it's been six years, but there's been remarkable changes. I feel like my family accepts me and my family for the way that we are.

And actually, I've seen a lot of work. God's done a lot of work in their life as well. So it's a pretty beautiful thing, but it was definitely very hard at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can imagine because it's just like, whoa, a lot of things have changed quickly in your life. It must be, you know, a bit unsettling, perhaps, to the people who know you. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, time will tell. People, your family, they see who you truly are. They see that you, like, if you're following Jesus Christ, like, goodness comes out of that. Your parenting, my parenting was better.

My children are happy and well. Your family sees that. That's a beautiful testimony.

So I'm going to pivot a little bit and go back to an earlier point in your story. You know, you'd been a career woman, I guess you could say, or you know, had a job, a career, all of these things. Tell me about the journey from that to your current situation. Like, was that hard? Like, what was that change? What all went into that? Tell me about that.

I liked working. I loved putting on a business suit and high heels and going to work. I worked in a big skyscraper downtown Calgary. It was a lot of fun. Oh, wow. You know, like quintessential American. Well, I guess you're Canadian, but you know, the American dream or, you know, whatever we, you know, whichever country you happen to live in or the Canadian dream.

Yeah. You were living it, you know? Put on your power suit and go to work. Yeah. It's not that I was a bigwig or anything like that, but still. Now, when Sam and I got married, I really did want to stay at home with my children. I thought that was important for a mother to do, especially with young children. But because of Sam's upbringing, I didn't want to be made to stay at home. This is my, you know, I was taught to be independent.

So when I found out that Sam was okay with me working, then I told him I actually would like to stay at home with our children.

Okay. So of course he was happy with that, but he would have been happy if I went to work. I have a very gracious, loving husband, but this was before we were a Christian, so I did stay at home. But I did have an idea that I would always go back to work, maybe when my children were in school or something like that. It was in my mind that I would eventually have a job again.

And now I don't think that way. I feel like my place is at home with my children and being a keeper of my home, being there when my husband gets home from work. I just, God's really placed that in my, on my heart that I am to be a woman at home.

And so it sounds like maybe that one wasn't, was that a hard transition for you to come to that place, or were you already heading that direction? I think I was heading that direction. And God is so gracious. When you have a surrendered heart and you want to do His will, He just graciously leads you along, and you just do what He sets before you.

And I find, I don't know, my heart and my mind changed so much when I came to Christ that that part of my journey wasn't that difficult. Yeah. It was more difficult for my family, though, that I wanted to do that. Yeah, because if there was a, if there's a family culture of like, you know, make sure and make your way in the world and all of that, and for you to have a pivot, yeah, I could imagine that being wait, what are you doing? Yeah. So you'd mentioned earlier how a lot of things changed with how you dress and so forth. I want to dig into that a bit more. Tell me about that process of changing your view on the way you dress, the, the, and so all of that, that, that whole package you mentioned, the jewelry, all of this.

What was that process like? Was that an easy thing for you, or did that take some time? That wasn't easy. The head covering was hard. Makeup wasn't so hard. I was a stay-at-home mom at that time. I didn't really get all dolled up that much. So that was a little bit easier. It didn't go completely. It kind of went step by step with what I got rid of, but the head covering was difficult. Sam mentioned it one day. This was new in our journey, probably a few months in, because of his upbringing, his mothers and sisters wore head coverings, his mother and sisters.

And when he first mentioned it, I said, just no, like, I'm not ready for it. We're not even going to talk about it. But he did mention that there was a series on YouTube that I could watch, a three-part series about the head covering, and that was by Finney Crivella from Followers of the Way.

So one weekend, Sam was actually out of town for work, and for some reason, I was ready to listen to what these sermons said because I knew, because you read the passage, First Corinthians, and you just try to write it off. Well, maybe the hair's the covering or it was just a cultural thing.

But I knew in my heart of hearts that wasn't right. I knew that what the Bible says is true. Like, you know, you don't need to read between lines. It's very plain and simple. It can be difficult, but I think most of the part, it's most of the time it's simple.

So I watched these sermons and felt that, yes, a woman is supposed to wear head covering. So the next day was Sunday, and I went to church with my children by myself, and I wore a scarf that I put over my head during the sermon. And I was very embarrassed by it. My heart was pounding. I was up in the balcony and put it on for the message, then took it off, and no one even saw me or knew what I was doing.

So I felt kind of cowardly. And then the next Sunday, Sam came home and he watched the messages, and the next Sunday, I put on a head covering, like tied it onto my head and went to church that way. And again, my heart's pounding and people are commenting on it. Oh, that's really pretty. Oh, you look so good. And I realized that they think it's just a fashion statement. So the next Sunday, I come back and I'm wearing it again. Then I stopped getting so many comments on it. People, I think, realized what I was doing and they didn't want to go down that road themselves.

So that was difficult. There were times where I didn't want to wear it or some, especially around my family, sometimes I would wear it and sometimes I wouldn't, and it was very confusing. Sam one time asked me, well, just take it off. If this is such a struggle, don't wear it. But I said, I have to. Scripture says I have to, and I feel convicted to, so I must.

So it took some time, probably about a few months where I really wrestled and struggled with it. But now I wear it full time. And it's amazing the sense of peace that came over me when I wear it. I feel, I don't know, protected almost. Like there was something about it where I felt in the world's eyes that maybe it's a suppression, but yet I felt freedom with it on. So it was a very interesting thing.

And I don't really know how to explain it, but there was a freedom of putting it on. How did that go for other elements of changing your attire? Again, you had mentioned the jewelry, the makeup, the, you know, these other things.

Was there a similar process for those things as well? In a sense, my engagement ring was really hard to give up. We have such a neat story behind that. Sam proposed to me on top of the Eiffel Tower. Oh, wow.

But what's more important? And I think God is. So we took that off, and then a little while later, we sold it because what's the point of having that? But my attire, that was probably the last big change that I made, and it was hard. I didn't want to wear dresses or skirts all the time.

But I realized that God created man and woman, and He created me to be a woman. So I want to be a woman. So when you go to weddings or when people go on dates, what does a woman usually wear? Well, they usually wear a dress or a skirt. And why is that? Because they want to be feminine. They want to be maybe beautiful. And so it's still in our culture. It's just not upfront as much anymore. But especially with all the gender stuff going on right now, like God created me to be a woman, so I want to look like a woman. So I put on skirts and dresses full time. And honestly, I didn't want to.

And there's times where I'd look in the mirror and go, I can't believe I'm wearing this right now, or I look, I don't know. But I just did it. And one thing that I learned, and this is with the way I dress and the head covering, is if you dwell on it, that thought gets stronger and more powerful. I think it's the evil one in our minds or putting thoughts in your mind. And if you just dismiss that thought, I don't want to do that, or I look frumpy or silly or whatever, just get rid of that thought and stop thinking it. And I found that it's given me a lot of power to get over that and just be accepting of how I look now.

Tell us a bit more on like the practical side as you're making those switches to changing how you dress. Yeah, it was really hard because I didn't have anyone in my life that was doing these things. Of course, I had Sam's family, but I wasn't going to sew a cape dress. So what was I supposed to wear? It was really difficult. You'd go to the store and things were just not modest enough, or they were maybe too expensive because that's another part of modesty, I think, is being very simple and being careful with what you're spending your money on. So that it was hard. It was a big struggle at the beginning, or what's a head covering supposed to look like, or how are you supposed to tie a head covering?

But one thing, one place that I found very useful actually was a secondhand store. Surprisingly, there's a lot of long skirts in a secondhand store. And layering is another thing that was very useful because it's hard to find tops that are modest, but if you layer, you have a tank top or a shirt underneath a top, then the neckline's not plunging anymore or you don't see your shoulders. And so layering is a good friend of mine.

And then for the head covering, at first it was a scarf that I just had at home that I used. And I found I had bandanas that I would use sometimes too, and just a lot of, actually my one of my favorite head coverings, I found at a secondhand store as well.

So just taking steps, things have changed along my journey already, and I'm sure that it'll continue to change.

And yeah, another place I actually buy a lot of my clothes now is Amazon because it's very hard to find specific things in the stores. And I'm also a mom of small children, so Amazon's my friend.

You know, this is a real part of the story, like those practical things, and it's a process, and there's iterations to this story, you know, where you're, these things don't happen instantaneously. This is what I'm, I guess what I'm getting at. About how long of a stretch of time was this from conversion to a lot of these changes in dress and lifestyle and all of that? Like how long did that phase take?

A lot of them happened in the first year. Most of them did. The head covering came first, even before makeup and jewelry, and then my attire came last. And that was probably two years after conversion where I really started embracing dressing like a woman and being more modest.

Yeah, I can imagine, you know, it takes time. It's not just an instantaneous thing. And so I'm going to pivot a little here with this next question. Something we hear a lot, you know, emails, people commenting, whatever on this podcast is the question of where does a woman fit into the community, into church life and all of that, that whole side of things. I'd love to hear you comment on that, especially our, like, what are ways ladies can contribute to the church? What does that look like?

A big way that we contribute is through hospitality. We have homes and we're supposed to be keepers of our homes, and it's easy to have people in our homes. I truly believe that God gave us the home that we're living in, so we need to use it for His honor, for His glory.

So that could be church family, it could be neighbors, strangers sometimes even, have people over for meals, have them over for coffee, invite young moms to, or moms with young children to come over and have a play date.

It's such a good and useful tool to have people in our home. It's what Jesus did. Jesus went to people's homes and He dined with them. A home is a comfortable place. It's where people open up. It's where they can share their heart and where you can build relationships.

So hospitality is a huge area where we can serve in. My husband, he's out more than I am. I'm at home with young children and I homeschool. So he often will bring contacts home, people into our home. And then I serve or people spend the night, and I just try to show them the love of Jesus Christ through that. And it's easy to, I think, when you're serving them a nice meal or giving them a nice bed to sleep in, and little things, little touches of detail go a long way with people and showing them the love of Christ.

And of course, supporting my husband, being a good wife with being there for him when he's struggling with things, or I'm there so he can bounce ideas off of. I think that we are together in the kingdom. We're standing side by side and we're going through this journey together. So I'm his, I'm his helpmate.

And another way too, which scripture talks about, is women being teachers to the younger women. And I've always envisioned that that was gray-haired women teaching the younger women, which I believe is true. But I think that goes for anyone that has someone younger than them, that they could be mentoring them or teaching them or praying with them, just being involved in each other's lives.

And then something else that I think is very important that anyone can do anytime, anywhere is to pray.

It's kind of maybe cliche to say that there's power in praying, but there is power in praying. If we are living an obedient life to Jesus Christ, then we have the ear of our mighty Creator, and we should use that. Prayer is so important. And I also know that there's a lot of power in fasting as well. So if you have fasting and prayer that is doing, that's doing something in your community.

Fasting was something that was hard to know how to do correctly, or the Bible talks about fasting, but there's not maybe a lot of examples around. There wasn't for us. So we just started with, I would start with skipping a meal, skipping usually breakfast in the morning. And then over time that got easy. It was easy to just skip breakfast and fast and pray. So then it went to two meals. And I heard through a David Brousseau talk that the early church typically skipped breakfast and lunch, and then they would eat supper.

And that's been very powerful in my life and powerful for people that are around me. We've seen many prayers answered, and it's a very useful tool and something that we all should be doing. So there's probably people listening to this that are struggling to find where do I fit into God's kingdom? Where do I fit into my church community? And those kinds of questions, they're wrestling with that.

What would you say to those people? I would say do the thing that's in front of you and do little steps. This big grand thing's not just going to fall out of the sky in front of you. That happens to some people, but it doesn't happen to the average person. So just taking little steps, doing maybe there's a little thought in your mind, we'll just follow that thought. Is it calling a friend or serving your neighbor in some capacity? Just doing those small little steps. I think sometimes people think that there needs to be a big thing for them to fit into the kingdom of God, and there doesn't need to be. It's just doing those little things and being obedient to the Holy Spirit and following His promptings.

And when you follow those small little promptings, bigger ones come. Just going ahead and pursuing it and doing something is better than doing nothing. Sometimes I know I've struggled with, I'm not, what should I do or how can I do really amazing things in my community? And if you've ever read any missionary stories or things like that, it always started with something small.

George Müller didn't all of a sudden have this huge orphanage with all these hundreds of children. He had children come to his house and he would feed them breakfast. And there was only a few of them at the beginning. So you just start somewhere really small and you never know how God will use you.

Start small. Wow. Yeah, that's so true though, because sometimes we have these grandiose ideas of these things and maybe what we should be doing is just take the next step. Yeah, I've learned from experience that God doesn't show you the whole path or even show you what doors open. You just take a step in faith and you walk and then the doors will open.

Wow. Well, Christina, thank you for taking the time to share your story with us today. I think you've given us a lot to think about. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode with Christina. If you found this interesting, you should listen to this episode we did with Tirzah, where she tells her journey of joining a church community and the lessons she learned along the way. We also have another YouTube channel called Anabaptist Origins, which is a documentary series about the first hundred years of the Anabaptist movement. And so make sure you're subscribed to that as well. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode.