I went to Man Camp for the first time last October. Two weeks before I was set to go to camp, I started feeling the nudge to get baptized. It was kind of an odd feeling to get because I have been a Christian all my life, was baptized as an infant, and had been very involved in my church. Still, I told my trip captain about that feeling so I would be accountable a little bit. I had been praying about it and recognized I felt this nudge but I didn’t want to do it just to be doing it, I wanted to make sure it felt right.
Meanwhile, the migraines that I had been getting my entire life were continuing. I’ve always had them to the point that I had a headache of some sort everyday. That was even something that had kept me from camp in the past because I was concerned a migraine would ruin the experience. For the past few years I’ve been praying for God to take my migraines away.
When I got to Man Camp, the first day was rainy and nasty and I kept thinking that would cause me to have a bad migraine, but I didn’t. I did have a migraine all day on Saturday, but I pushed through and did all I could. After our campfire talks that night, I just wanted to take some medicine and go to bed so that I would be prepared for the big day of baptisms on Sunday. I woke up at 4 a.m. thinking I would feel better, but my migraine was much worse, so I took more medicine and went back to sleep hoping in a few hours I would wake up and feel better.
At 6 a.m., I woke up and my migraine was even worse. I was laying in my tent wondering to myself how I was going to ask my group to help me put my stuff away because I couldn’t physically do it. I was bummed because I didn’t feel right and it was supposed to be the big day.
My trip captain came and asked if I was OK. I told him I wasn’t but forced myself to get dressed and ate what I could; I felt that this may have been a spiritual attack. I went to the main tent overlooking the pond where baptisms would be happening later, and I prayed, “God, if this is what you want me to do, then something’s gotta give, because I just don’t feel right.”
We went to worship, and I sat far from the tent to shield my pounding head. I moved back in with my unit when the speaker was teaching, and then they asked who was going to get baptized. My trip captain asked if I was going to do it, and I said it didn’t feel right. Everyone headed over to the pond, and as I stood there, I just felt like I had to do it. I got in line with my arms and whole body shaking because I was in so much pain.
I went into the pond and was baptized, and as soon as I came out of the water, my headache was totally gone. I was able to go back to our campsite and clean up my own stuff and even helped other guys pack their gear.
Since then, my headaches aren’t gone completely, but they’re dramatically less. I used to get up in the morning and if I didn’t have a migraine, I would worry all day because I knew a headache was going to come at some point. Now, I get up and don’t worry anymore because I’ve gone entire weeks without any headaches. It has been a huge change. I’m a different person because I’m not anxious or in pain all of the time, and I’m seeing things in the world that I missed for all those years. -Greg R.