Freedom

The past few days I've been contemplating freedom, which seems appropriate, as yesterday was Easter. Growing up in a very Christ focused home and later carrying that into my own home the word “freedom” seems to lose its power. I feel like there are a lot of words in the Christian society that have been dumbed down or overused until they lose their entire meaning. I'm sure we can all relate to the experience of hearing a song on the radio that at first packs such a punch all you want to do is hear it over and over again and we wait for it to come on with great anticipation. But what happens after we've heard that song so many times? It starts to lose its power and its meaning and sometimes reaches the point of being annoying and instead of turning the dial up full blast we change the channel. That's pretty much how I feel about certain words like “freedom”. All I can conjur up in my mind when I think about that word is a dead one of different church services I've attended because it didn't MEAN anything to me. I was already free.

Freedom is intoxicating to me. It calls to me. I have discovered that you can't truly know the meaning of freedom until you've been allowed to be held captive. I've been in a place in my life recently that has drawn me away from everything that I used to know. Friends, family, the whole Christian environment. It's been beyond painful. The kind of separation that binds you up. What I mean by that is that I felt captive to my circumstances, stuck in a time and a mental state that I didn't think I could pull myself out of. There comes a time when you get so tired of fighting that you fall. And it hurts. It's that kind of consuming pain that you can't know unless you have experienced it. I thought I knew what pain was. I thought I knew what it felt like to be hopeless. I thought I knew what it was like to be hurt and betrayed, or to hurt and betray others, until recently, when everything I thought I knew came tumbling down around me and I was alone. I was in my own solitary confinement. In the darkness, by yourself, you can begin to lose your identity. It's almost like you blend into your surroundings and there's nothing but black. I know that this sounds dramatic, and maybe it is, but I feel that even typing those words out seem to be ineffective for what I've been feeling. I know that everyone has experienced heart ache in their life. I know that my struggles are nothing compared to what those around me and around the world have gone through but it has been very real to me.

I would like to say that I am super woman, and faced with even the greatest of troubles, I rose to the occasion and fought my way back to the top, but I take absolutely no pride in being strong. It has been all that I could manage to stand up. Humility is another word that I am slowly beginning to understand. Not the false humility that I have been familiar with in my life but true brokenness that has no agenda. I'm beginning to feel the power in the simplest of verses in the Bible like 2 Corinthians 12:10 “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. FOR WHEN I AM WEAK, THEN I AM STRONG.” This is important to me because I have placed so much value on being strong and taking care of things on my own. So much so I have pushed people away because I needed to prove to myself that I could do it on my own and I didn't need anyone to take care of me.

In the darkness of captivity, you strike out at everything that comes near you, in ignorance and fear. In my life, I've noticed, that even if a hand were to reach out to help I would push it away because I couldn't see the source. I've hurt so many people that have only wanted to help and for that I can't explain how incredibly sorry I am. Repentance is another word I am slowly beginning to understand.

Now, thinking about Jesus, thinking about what it truly means to be free, I can't help but be overwhelmed by this season of His resurrection. Everything that used to mean something to me means something completely different. Something real. And I am thankful. I am so unbelievably, exceptionally, completely thankful. It's an overflowing thankfulness that there is hope. There are no words. They all fail me. They betray what I'm truly feeling. I never thought I would reach a point in my life where I am silenced by thankfulness. I am baffled. It's like being blinded by the sun after being in the black for so long, it's almost painful. But beautiful. There's nothing else that really matters. I'm not interested in being important, I'm not interested in having a title, I'm not interested in even greatness. All that I'm interested in is walking forward in the light of freedom.

And to lighten this post, a picture of someone who has taught me more about joy and strength than any human. My son Ezra Justice.