Free to Love
What does Freedom look like to you? I think most of us take our freedom for granted. ______________________
-We speak like our words don't bring life or bring death.
-We eat like the food will not harm or nourish our bodies.
-We act like our pet addictions or aversions don't hurt or benefit the people around us (or ourselves)
-We let our mind settle on thoughts that tear us down or build us up.
-We dress like the world around us doesn't see that we have self -respect (or not)
-We spend money like tomorrow does not exist, or we plan for the future.
-We spend time buy wasting it or being productive
All of our "freedoms" have a positive or negative repercussions.
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The beauty of not being a programmed robot but being created as creatures of choice, is that we are free to choose love. And what is LOVE really?
In The Magnolia Journal issue You were Made to be FREE, Barry found freedom by forgiving his daughters killer. Julia found freedom by over coming her fear to ask for help and be rescued out of sex trafficking and then return to rescue other victims. Stephen found freedom by cutting up his credit cards and getting out of debt. Chris walked away from the bottle and Billy chose to leave his degree to follow his dream. All of these stories told the hard, painful choices it took to get out of a downward spiral of bondage. Sometimes our "freedom of Choice" is actually what brings us death.
In my freedom I was also digging myself a hole. The things that put a damper on my [almost] picture perfect life was self imposed stress of building my perfectly successful direct sale business while still maintaining a perfect home. Keeping house perfectly, being perfectly decluttered and organized, having my 3 children be perfectly trained and cooking perfectly natural/from scratch meals. Then of course working out and dieting was a huge piece of the puzzle too. My self imposed expectations were drowning me. I pushed forward and micro-organized my days hour by hour. Suddenly my body had had it! I lost my health and my joy. It was time to declutter my schedule and my mind like I had my house.
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I cleared out the summer and started spending every spare minute at the lake.
I did a lot of soul searching and listening to uplifting music and speakers. I cleared my head of the noise and filled my mind with scriptures like "You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you" Is. 26 and God gave us not a spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control" 11Tim. and Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and exceptable and perfect. Ro. 12
I started thinking about what FREEDOM means to me.
-It's bringing every thought into captivity so I am FREE to live in peace
-It's having a budget so I'm FREE to spend my money without fear
-It's having a vision for my children so I am FREE to train without second guessing myself
- It's clearing my to-do list so I am FREE to take the children to the beach
-It's keeping my house neat, (not perfect) so I am FREE to host any guest that drops in (getting rid of extra STUFF makes this so easy)
-It's getting rid of distractions and addictions so I am FREE to be present in every moment. (this could be as simple as putting away my smart phone for a few hours)
-It's saying NO to busy-work or busy-obligations so I am FREE to minister to the people I'm called to (especially my family)
-It means being fearless and shameless, raw, real and authentic so I am FREE to have true friendships.
The list could go on. But the driving factor behind all of these is to live in love. Being loved and loving back.
What does living in FREEDOM mean to you?