#meditateonthis.

I’m sitting here today, anxious about how much I have missed in the classes I’ve not been to the past two days while sick with a respiratory infection and awful sinus headache. It has me stressed and terrified that I’ve missed 2 important classes in the first 3 weeks of school because I could not get out of bed without my head throbbing. I know I can recover and make up for what I miss, but I still stress about it to the point of freaking out.

I’m sitting here today, realizing that I graduate college in 100 days, and both am excited and absolutely anxious about what life will bring after college. I can’t tell if I’m going to be more excited about the future or more anxious yet. Because I graduate in 100 days, and I have no idea what life will bring on the 101st day, after I’m not a Lipscomb student anymore. And that is freaking terrifying.

I’m sitting here today, thankful for a doctor that wrote for a refill of my Paxil on Tuesday and asked me how my anxiety is, and asked me when I was starting therapy again. I’m thankful she cares not just about therapy but about the fact that medicine is a necessary part of my self-care. 

And I sit here today, jaw unhinged at the comments of Marianne Williamson about post-partum depression and anxiety.

I have two caveats to add before I post what she wrote:

1. I have written about Williamson before. I loved a quote from one of her books–I still do.
2. I am not a parent, so obviously I have not dealt with PPD/PPA. I do, however, struggle with mental illness apart from post-partum– GAD and depression specifically. So while I may not have the same experiences or issues as someone with PPD/PPA, her words had a profound impact as someone struggling with mental illness for a long time. I understand the situations surround post-partum and general mental health are different, but her words impacted me nonetheless.

 

That being said, I was appalled when I found the #meditateonthis topic on twitter, as it led me to Williamson’s words yesterday surrounding the idea about PPD/A screening in pregnant/post partum mothers.

Okay. Let’s think about this a bit.

None of what I’ve gone through is “normal” when it comes to my mental health.

Before I got on medication for GAD, I was up almost all night scared to go to sleep. I was scared I was going to die. I couldn’t concentrate on classes, I sobbed and cried every night thinking I wouldn’t wake up the next morning. I went to class everyday for an entire semester a walking zombie, unable to concentrate fully on anything. My grades suffered. My relationships suffered. My health suffered.

I prayed. Oh, how I prayed. Except I prayed that God would wake me up in the morning, that He wouldn’t let me die in my sleep.

And that didn’t do one thing to keep me from the anxiety the next day.

Before I started on medicine for depression, I was in a pit so deep I didn’t think I was going to get out. I was in a fog day in and day out. It didn’t matter if good things happened, my brain focused only on the bad. And when the anxiety appeared, it mixed with the depression and sent me into a never-ending cycle of mental hell. One that I didn’t know if I was ever going to get out of.

Suicide has been something I’ve thought of more than once in my life. From a young age, I’ve thought about ways to escape it through death. I didn’t feel like life was worth it, or I was a burden, that everyone would be better off without me.

As recently as a few months ago did I vocalize this. I said it both out loud to myself-and thankfully to someone else. I thought about medicines I could take, or what would happen if I walked out in front of a car on my ever-busy street. I just wanted and needed to get out of this painful life that had consumed me.

It was then that I knew I needed a medicine increase. And it has since made life bearable again.

Williamson could be right- prayer could help. same with meditation, nutrition, etc. But it was medicine that saved my life. 

And just like I believe that God works through prayer, He works through medicine too. He did for me. 

—

We don’t get the flu and someone say, “oh just pray and it’ll get better. meditate and it’ll go away,” right? We don’t tell someone with a broken bone to eat better or love more and their bone will heal.

So why would we EVER approach mental health the same way?

I can’t pray my way out of the flu. I can’t meditate my way out of pneumonia. Neither can I pray my anxiety away, or meditate until I don’t have depression.

For me, I’ve dealt with more mental health medical issues in the past few years than I have physical. Never broken a bone or had any big health scares. Yet, if I did, you better damn believe that I would take the advice and medicine my doctor gave me. So, when my doctor said it was time to think about medicine to help the imbalance in my brain… I trusted her. And it’s changed my life for the better.

No, it hasn’t taken the anxiety away, or made the depression cease. But it has helped me fight through the fog, to work through the pain instead of caving underneath it. It has helped me take the edge off enough to explore other channels (such as therapy and support groups). But without medicine as the beginning of my healing, I wouldn’t have had the strength to do any of that.

Honestly? Without medicine, I doubt I’d be here. 

—

Words like Williamson’s are what keep people from getting help. Or they shame those like me that chose medicine as a pathway towards health. 

They think it’s THEIR fault when they have these feelings or struggles. It’s not. It’s not your fault.

Or they feel ashamed that they feel this way, or think this way. It’s not shameful. At all.

It’s a battle. A relentless, evil battle against your brain and your body, and sometimes you wonder if your brain is going to win out. I’m one of the lucky ones that made it back from the brink.

Yet people like Williamson say bullshit like this, and make those that struggle like me and the 1 in 5 women that struggle with PPD/PPA feel less than because they use medicine that they are less than. That they just need to try harder to get better. They have to do more than they already are to feel better.

If I’d tried any harder before getting on medicine a year ago, I would have spiraled even harder than I did. I was a shell before medicine was introduced. I look at myself a year ago and can’t believe how far I’ve come. 

I wouldn’t have gone far at all if medicine hadn’t been a part of my recovery. 

I can’t imagine the new mom reading Williamson’s words thinking she had to DO MORE to feel better. And the scary thing? People buy into it. Look at the screenshot– people are supporting her, agreeing with her. People that would have sought help now probably second guess themselves, thinking it’s all on them. This rhetoric isn’t just wrong–it’s harmful. It could lead to more people not finding help. And that’s terrifying. She has a social media platform of nearly 1 million people that see her rhetoric and shy away from finding much-needed support. That terrifies me.

—

I didn’t get help for a long time because I was afraid of people saying stuff like this. I didn’t want to be thought of as weak or doubting my faith. I was scared people would see my as less than, or broken beyond repair. I didn’t want to lose anything else, and I was scared I’d lose people.

I’m thankful to have heard more “me too” responses than anything else.

But sadly, I’ve had things like this said to me too, similar to Williamson’s rhetoric: “why don’t you pray more about it? what are you anxious about? You don’t have anything to feel sad about. Quit dwelling on it, that’s not going to make it better.” Those words stifled my recovery at the time, and made me wonder if anything was worth it. If I was actually getting better, if anything was helping me.

But I refuse to let those voices, like Williamson’s, keep me from being the best me. And the best me is someone that speaks up about her struggle, and one that uses medicine as her defense in this harrowing battle. 

—

Like Williamson, I am a person of faith. I struggled so much with my mental battle and my faith and the tension there is between them. Was I not being faithful? Was I not trusting enough? Was Jesus there in the midst of my hurt and my terror?

I prayed often. daily, nightly. I read scripture and devotionals, and the words resonated in my soul. I sang worship songs and encouraged friends. But it was hollow. I was a zombie, going through the motions of faith. Faith wasn’t enough to save me from my brain.

In a lot of ways, my faith grew stronger because I relied on God so much when I couldn’t see the end. When I was terrified and unable to sleep, I would pray. It didn’t make things go away. It brought comfort, but not results.

I could sing It Is Well in chapel all day long. But I couldn’t believe it, because there was nothing well with me.

I, for one, thinks Jesus works through the tools I’ve been given to help me find mental health. He works through the counselor to help me find peace in my struggle. He gives me words and a voice to talk about things I wouldn’t even say out loud a year ago. Vulnerability has become a huge part of my story over the past year, and He is the only reason I have the strength to speak.

And he works through the medicine. He has given me doctors with wisdom, pharmicists with care and guidance to walk me through what the medicine will do and how it will help. It took time, but I finally found myself again amidst the fog. I found joy, I found peace and solace in the midst of the chaos going on in my brain. The medicine gives me the ability to do more, to be more, for the kingdom. It gives me the freedom to be all that He created me to be.

—

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the things Williamson suggests, per se. It’s how she suggests them.  Prayer is a big part of my life; meditation is something I use to calm myself down; and nutrition is something that is very closely tied to my anxiety (caffeine in particular). Those could be things that help people in their mental health journey.

But they should not be in lieu of seeking medical help if you desire. Or they shouldn’t be suggested instead of medical help if it’s needed. Because those things could help, but medical help can, too– it’s been proven to do so.

When I started down this journey, a friend told me to think about a toolbelt– a list of “tools” that help me when I have an anxiety attack or a bad day. The things that  Williamson says are on it, but medicine is too.  This shouldn’t be an either-or discussion; if medicine helps you, awesome!  If something else helps you, awesome! Just please- PLEASE- find help. Selfcare is detrimental. Whatever works for you– whatever makes you feel better and come out of the fog– is the best thing that could happen.

If prayer, meditation, and diet work to keep your anxiety at bay, awesome. Good for you. They help me, sure. But they don’t help me thrive like medicine does.

Prayer, meditation, healthy food are all parts of my recovery. But my recovery didn’t start until my medicine did.

If it’s helping someone, why would we shame them about it?

Everyone is different. Selfcare is different for everyone. What works for me (medicine, therapy, walking, nightlight, rest) might not work for you. What you do might not help me. But no one shoud be told that they don’t need to do something that could help them.

No one should be shamed into not taking their mental health seriously. 

 Talk like this could take someone’s life. Let’s meditate on that, instead of choosing to meditate over taking medicine. Let’s end this stigma that we are doing something wrong, and that we have to try harder to fix something that is clearly a medical struggle.

I hope Williamson sees the uproar she’s caused, and realizes how harmful her words are to those that struggle. Stigma is real, and her words prove it.

Help is real. And for me, it’s in the form of a little white pill I pray over before taking each day. That pill is my prayer– that it allows me to be what God intended me to be.

There is not enough love or prayer that could have saved me like my medicine did.

If you are a person of faith struggling with mental health, here are some no stigma posts for your consideration:

I Know Anxiety and I Know Jesus-Hannah Collins

 

Why The World Needs the Mentally Different-Momastery (basically all of G’s posts. Jesus loves me, this I know, for He gave me lexapro!)

When You Want to Find Hidden Graces in The Dark Spaces- A Holy Experience (Guest Post): (by Scott Sauls)

The Sanitized Stories We Tell- Sarah Bessey

Thoughts on depression, suicide, and being a Christian- Nish Weiseth

 

five minute friday {present}

happy five minute friday guys!! this week’s topic is very appropriate for me:

You, Lord, are God of the present tense. 

A line from one of my favorite Jon Foreman songs, Again. It’s been stuck in my head all week.

I’m usually stuck in one of two places in my head: firmly rooted in the past, or worrying about my impending future.

Lately, the future has been plaguing me the most.

Last week I wrote about my hatred of waiting. My impatience. I think a lot of my impatience stems from wanting to know my future. Wanting to know what’s going to happen tomorrow, next week, next year… I’m not a spontaneous person. I don’t like waiting to see what happens when it’s already unfolding.

The past couple weeks, I’ve been doing a lot more waiting than I’ve wanted. And I hated it.

I have been forced to take a step back and wait on the Lord’s timing. And, lo and behold, it was irreovocably perfect timing. Always is, even if it doesn’t feel like it is at the time.

Instead of vying so hard to figure out the future, He says to wait. Be here in the present. This is a time and a day He has made, too– not just the future.

He has the plans of the future, but we have the time of the present to put that plan into motion now. 

Unbreakably Kimmy Schmidt told us to take life at 10 seconds at a time. That’s all we need. We don’t need to figure out the future just yet.

I need to be more present in the present tense. Even if it’s just for 10 seconds at a time. 

 

Because the future is in His hands… but today is in mine. And I can bring Him as much glory in the present tense as I will in the someday He’s promised me.

Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage. Wait for the LORD! -Psalm 27:14 (ESV)

 

five minute friday {time}

Five minute friday time! Love this week’s prompt:

 

 

go:

I am one of the least patient people on the planet. I know this is one of my biggest flaws, my ability to want things on my time. I don’t like waiting and I really hate lateness and things being late/rescheduled.  Especially waiting– whether it’s in line, for an email or text response, whatever. Waiting is the thing I’m least patient about– I like fast and efficient and on-time, thankyouverymuch.

I remember in high school we did a youth group exercise where we were writing down characteristics we saw in each other– and one of the ones on mine was “patient.” I laughed and scoffed to my mentor/friend Sharon that patient was the thing I was the LEAST. In her gentle encouraging mom-manner, she said, “well, maybe that’s God prompting that that’s something you should work on?”

She was right. That hasn’t made me better about being patient, though.

I was supposed to have a super important meeting yesterday. I went in only to discover the person I was meeting with was sick and I hadn’t known. (and was out again today). I was devastated. And angry. Not at him being sick- Lord I know what that’s all about!

Mainly, I was angry at time. Time wasted, time spent not getting things done. I needed this dealt with already and it keeps dragging on and on and on. I hate waiting. Waiting for something to happen or not happen is the most stressful thing to me.

I know that God’s timing is never wrong… I just wish time was on my side more lately. Because the waiting is the hardest part.

 

stop.

This prompt was quite timely, as I needed a minute to vent. All better now. 🙂

Songs on Sunday

Music has always had a profound impact on my life. I grew up with family that loved music- playing it, performing it (I’m a choir kid, my brother’s a musician), listening to it… music has always been a big influence on my life. I’ve always been a words girl, especially lyrics. Set pretty words to pretty music? I’m sold.  I’ve written about specific songs here before, and I always try to find a song (or 3) that go with whatever I’m writing.  So, music has always been a part of just about every facet of my life.

Music hasn’t impacted any corner of my life more than my faith life, however. Whenever I’m overwhelmed or struggling, the worship music goes on loud. I’ve always found a song that teaches me about God, or leads me to His word, or that help me find my way back when life becomes too much to handle. Secular, hymns, Christmas songs… music always points me back to Him.

God has used music more than once to save me.

To promote her book Out of Sorts (are you sick of me talking about this book yet? #sorrynotsorry), Sarah Bessey decided to create a spotify playlist of her “faith-story”– a mix of songs she listened to while writing the book, and songs that have impacted her faith. She asked us some of the songs that would be on our faith-story playlist, so I decided to make one.

And I’ll be sharing it with you as my first-ever blog series, Songs on Sunday:

On Sundays I’m going to come here and write about a song, a group of songs, or a particular singer/band that has made an impact on me.

From youth group days (long live Superchick and Skillet!!) to VBS songs to Hillsong, I want to see what my faith story has looked like through the lens of my favorite pastime–music.

I’m going to see if I can add the playlist (or what I have so far!) on my sidebar, but I’ll add it here in this post too. I don’t have it all yet– and some songs aren’t available on Spotify (sadness). I’ll write my first music post next week. I’m excited to share and reminicse on the music that has helped shape my story.

 

I’ll leave you with a new artist that’s captured me– thanks to Sarah’s playlist, actually. I’d never heard of Alli Rogers before Sarah’s list, and I’m so glad I know who she is now. Her words+voice are quite enchanting.

 

See you back next Sunday!

scars.

i am stressed. and worried. and anxious.

and so, when i am these things, my brain needs distracting, so I come here and hope writing words will calm me down.

I’m on the launch team for my friend Kaitlyn’s book, Even If Not. I’m so excited about this book being brought into the world, especially for those like me who are caught in this in-between stage of life. It’s never the easiest place to be, but her words constantly remind me that God is in every moment in this in-between. Life in the ampersand is easier knowing he’s on every page. 🙂

Anyhow, so she made some graphics with some quotes from the book for us to share for promotion purposes. This week’s quote grabbed my attention:

your scars tell your story. 

I really thought about this for awhile. I don’t have many story-telling physical scars. The only permanent scars I have are from bug bites on my legs- doesn’t tell you much of a story (except that I’m terribly allergic to mosquito bites).

but emotional scars? oh, do I have them.

and they tell my story even when I don’t want them to.

Glennon from Momastery shared this word earlier this week:

“So.

You want to be tough

You want to be rebellious

You want to be a badass

Then show your heart to everyone…

EVERYONE. (via “The Challenge” by Michael Xavier)

It’s such a paradox to me, this showing my heart to be tough. I grew up thinking the opposite: box it in, conceal it all and present yourself neat and tidy even when your insides are falling apart at the seams. No one needs to carry your burden, or question your scars. That was tough, I thought.

Now I know it’s not. It’s the opposite, actually– it’s cowardly, this internalizing yourself this way. Hiding your scars hides part of who you are. It hides the parts of the story God is redeeming through you… so why wouldn’t you share them?

We are made tougher when we wear our scars and stories like they’re the badges of honor they are.

You see, I spent my whole life hiding my scars. I don’t want people to see the ugly, to ask me what that is and why. To go deeper than I feel comfortable with. I still don’t want to go too deep most days.

I spent a long time burying my scars, acting like they didn’t exist. I’d hide details about my life and my backstory in hopes of avoiding the subject and forgetting it existed.

Forgetting the hurt. Forgetting the fear. Forgetting the bruises on my heart, the scars hidden inside. It was a lot easier to just pretend they didn’t exist.

And I did that for awhile. It worked– I kept my eyes down, got just personal and intimate enough to let people see a corner of my heart… but never the whole thing. There were whole sides of my life and my story that I just didn’t talk about to keep from letting people in too deep. I was scared  I’d get burned (again). People wouldn’t care, or use my hurts against me. I didn’t want people to reject me for what I’ve done or what’s happened to me. I still don’t.

I realize now that that is no way to live. It gets really lonely when you only show part of yourself to the world. Keeping everything inside only made it harder when I had to give up the ghost and live with my scars out in the open. When you hold something like your story in for so long, when it comes out, it explodes. And it’s not pretty. At least it wasn’t for me.

It finally stopped working when I realized that pretending things didn’t exist didn’t make them not exist. No matter how much I wished for things to go away, it didn’t make it actually happen. I realized this my freshman year of college: I couldn’t make my past go away. I could only learn how to deal with it and move on. but the scars remain.

In retrospect, I’m glad the things didn’t disappear. It made my life harder, and forced me to be open with people-myself included. But who I am and who He is making me to be wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t have the scars or the stories behind them. And I am more myself when I allow others to see my scars and know my story– for it shows what God is doing in my life.

So, I use my scars, I tell my stories, I let people know what stories those scars hold. Because those stories are all apart of what He has done for me.   While I am not my past and I am not my scars, they are a part of this crazy story God is writing. Those scars, no matter how annoying or delicate or visible, prove that I am healed. I am redeemed, a new creation free from my past. The scars are there, but the pain behind them isn’t anymore.

The scars are just there to tell the story.

These scars I’ve earned in whatever battle I’ve been given…and I share them, because  they are all apart of the story He is writing for me. And while scars and battles are never easy parts of us, they’re still parts of us– and they give God the glory.

Scars are a reminder of what was, but they’re also reminders that we are healed. We survived. We won.

It was Jesus’s wounds that healed us, afterall. 

And my scars mean I am healed.

five minute friday {first}

It’s the first five minute friday of the year! Woo! How fitting is the prompt tonight:

 

gonna actually attempt to do this one in five minutes, hehe.

 

GO:

This is the first year in a long time (lonnnng time) that  I’m not going into it with a sure plan.

When I was in high school, I had plans to become a teacher;

When I was in college, I was in the process of becoming a teacher;

Then August happened. And for the first time in my life, I literally have no sense of direction about what’s “next” for me in my life.

I spent so much of my life around this one solitary plan that I never gave any other ideas much thought.

This year though, is a clean slate. And I can’t decide whether it’s more terrifying or freeing. 

My usual overthinker type-A self is screaming. OMG WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH MY LIFE AHHHHH I NEED A PLAN.

Well, last year I learned what happens when I live by a single plan: I fall flat on my face when the plan falls apart. 

There’s a small part of me that thinks this is the most exciting thing ever. While terrifying and anxious, this gives me the opportunity to try new things, explore new ideas… things I never thought I could do. It’s exhilirating knowing that I am not tied down to a plan and a certain career right now.

 

DONE.

 

timer’s up and I finished! woohoo! I did wanna add one thing:

Writing this reminded me of one of my favorite verses, one that is totally relatable in this messy plan-less chapter:

“Watch closely: I am preparing something new! it’s happening now,even as I speak, and you’re about to see it. I am preparing a way through the desert;
    Waters will flow where there had been none.” (Isaiah 43:19 Voice)

for the first time in a long time, I’m starting completely over. and i’m excited.

excited for the other FMF prompts to come!!

my one word {2016 edition}

When my puppy, Russ, was old enough (around 5 months old), we gave him free reign of the house.

Before that, he had been closed off from all the rooms but mine and my mom’s, usually barricaded in somehow so Lola could get out but he couldn’t. (think baby gate. yes we were that crazy).This was primarily for safety– he was so tiny, we were afraid we wouldn’t find him (true story, dude has a dark coat of fur), he’d get hurt or get into something that could hurt him. It was easier to keep an eye on the feisty little dude when he was contained to one room. But he hated it.

But as he got bigger, he kept trying to figure out how to escape his confinement. He’d push the barricade, knock it over, and eventually he got big enough to jump over it. He was done with being trapped. He wanted to explore. He was big enough that we could train him not to go certain places, and he was old enough to start discovering things for himself, so we let him roam the house. Room by room, he romps around, sniffing where lola has gone, usually chasing her to her annoyance, bouncing around happily when he sees me or mom come through the door. But mostly, now that he can wander room by room, he’s content when he finds a place to be, knowing he can go wherever and move if he feels up to it.

We become different when we’re given our freedom.

Now that he’s found freedom, he’s a lot happier than he was when he had to be constrained to a part of the house. He behaves better, running around the house filled with energy, and loves running between the rooms to visit me and mom.

We change when we know we’re free.

And I… I long to be free.

Free from who I was.

Free from what I thought (or think).

Free from the labels put on me (by myself and others).

Free from worry (ha, maybe someday).

Free from the story I used to live, and the story I thought I was supposed to be living.

Free (verb): release from captivity, confinement, or slavery.

Free (adj): not physically restrained, obstructed, or fixed; unimpeded.

We were made to be free. We hate being held hostage  by whatever has chained us. I have a lot of things that I’ve made little prisons out of over the course of my life. My past, definitions of myself, labels, dreams and plans… all these little prisons have trapped me in a shallow pit of misery, shame, fear, and exhaustion.

I want to be free of it all. Free of my past, my plans, my shoulda coulda woulda thoughts. Free from what I thought I was going to be and what I am; free of what others want me to be.

But here’s the thing:  according to Christ, I already am free. We’re already free, because Jesus set us free.

But do we live it? Do we live like we’re truly as free as we are?

I know I don’t. I live like I’m stuck. Trapped in who I was, who I wanted to be. Can’t quite figure out who I am and who I want to be now and not yesterday. Trapped is not a fun place to live, y’all. I can’t go back… and I can’t go forward.

I’m done with that hell. I’m just done living like I can’t move forward.

I want to live life knowing Who has me, and believe that he really does. I want to live free of the chains that have once kept me enslaved to my past, my failures, my labels. I want to be free to be the person I am to God, and nothing else.

In 2016, I want to-long to– be and live like I’m free.

 

…

last May, my friend April sent me a link to this sermon by the wonderful and lovely Shauna Niequist. (if you have a spare 30 minutes to hear a good word by a  fantastic speaker, do it!) April told me she was only a few minutes into the sermon, but she thought I needed to hear it. And she was right– I did. (this is where I say how thankful I am for the people not only know me well but know when to nudge me along and speak truth to me. those are the best kind of people).

Shauna was talking about the narratives we live– the stories we carry from past experiences, failures, childhood, etc. And how those narratives compete with the story God has already written for us and is still writing for us. We get caught up in the people we were that we forget about who we are now, and who He has made us to be. She talks about dropping those narratives and picking up the truths God has spoken over us and the story He’s writing for us.

Her words were powerful to me then,  but even moreso to me now, nearly 8 months later. It’s kinda crazy how much has changed since I first watched this. The stories and narratives  I had then are still here… and some new ones I need to drop have since been added. (no, teaching is not the only job I can do. or want  to do. It’s taken me awhile to say that). So I rewatched this last night. Because there was a question she asked that I spoke about with my friend, and the answer ended up being how I figured out my word for 2016. And when I heard it again last night, i had the same answer I did last summer.

In the sermon, Shauna asks,

What’s the one word that if I believe it about myself, about God, and about the world  that would change everything?

If there was one word I believed that would change everything–how I view myself, God, and the world. If I took my old stories and narratives to the light and said, “no, I am THIS.” What would it be? 

A lot of words came to mind that I’ve struggled with. Loved. Daughter. New. Enough.

But none stuck out to me quite like free did. 

And like in years past with my one word resolutions, free kept weaving itself into my daily life.

Like the time I was looking up scriptures about freedom and Ellie Holcomb’s “I Want to Be Free” started playing when I put my phone on shuffle. Not even kidding.

Or when i got a book in the mail about finding freedom in Christ. I mean, c’mon now.

Or when I discovered a song by Switchfoot I’d yet to hear… about liberty and freedom.

I know God doesn’t speak to all of us through burning bushes or grandiose motions, but dangit it felt like He was waving a big sign in front of me. This is it! This is your work for the next chapter. (And I didn’t even know about student teaching at this time, so. Seriously, God has a sense of humor).

At the time, I knew I wanted to be free of the little kid my mom treated me like (still does somedays). I wanted to be more independent of her. That was the only one I thought of the first time I watched this.

Now, free means so much more.

I know some of the things I want to be free of, but not all of them. I’ll probably talk about some of them sometime here.

But there’s another part of free that  I need to figure out: I’m already free. So why don’t I act like it? 

This year, not only do I want to find freedom from the things that I’ve let imprison me; I want to believe that I’m already free from all of those things– and actually live like I am. 

Because while I may feel like those things enslave me, the chains are broken. I just need to get up, let them go,  and walk away.

(If only it was that easy. Le sigh).

So that is my 2016: to quit living like I’m still in chains when I’m a child of God.

As Sarah Bessey so adequately put: you’re not a worker, you’re an heir. Live like it!

That’s how I want to live in 2016.

I don’t know what it’s going to look like specifically yet– I learned the hard way in 2015 that going in to a new year with resolutions thinking you had it all figured out is a cause for trouble. Yeah. I learned my lesson there. I can’t choose what God wants to break of me, for me to be free of yet. But I can work with Him to figure it out, right? I can use this word, and look at the chains I’m in, and let Him show me how to break free from what I’ve enslaved myself in.

As for the living like I’m free, that’s a whole other ballgame. But I have ideas.

While I’m not going into 2016 with a crazy list of things I want to change about myself or lofty visions of becoming a new person, I have this: I have a God who has already re-written my story. Who has already broken my chains. And this year, my resolution is to discover how to break free myself– and to live in that freedom. I have some ideas, some goals to help me get there, but ultimately He will help me do what I need to do to be the heir He’s called me to be, plans and goals or not.

This year, my goal is to live into the story where He’s holding the pen. My stories of yesterday can’t hold me back from being His anymore. 2016 will be a year that I declare that my chains are gone– and I’ll actually live like it.

 

Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.- Galatians 5:1 (MSG)

This year, I’m taking my stand. There’s no person, no story, no past failings or mistakes that will enslave me anymore. 

I Want to be Free- Ellie Holcomb

Liberty-Switchfoot. Only you can free my soul. (hallelujah)

Run Free- Jon Foreman.Pretty sure this is going to be my anthem for this year.