Being Free

  What does it mean to be free? Many say that it is a life without rules; others say that it is a life without authority; some say it is even an existence without God. So many answers beyond those exist...
  But what does it really mean to be free when, so often, we feel bound by this thing called life. We want to be out from under the pressure of performance; we want to escape  the sense of shame we carry; we yearn to move past the pain we have endured. We want to be able to live abundant and full existences. And yet, we begin to think it's impossible...because there is just too much holding us down.


   I want to pose a question, though: could it be that, in order to arrive at the freedom we desire, we must learn to face what we feel bound by? Perhaps the reason why we feel like we are alive but not living is because we have looked for freedom from our bondage yet have been unwilling to walk through it.
  At an earlier time in my life, I wanted escape in the worst way. Feeling the burden that I carried, all I hoped for was that it would go away. But I later learned that I could not be free without walking through adversity, nor could I be free without someone to give me hope. In time, that "someone" was God. 
 Maybe being free means tasting of sorrow; maybe it only comes when you have exhausted every other option of salvation, when you've tried to seek release in all other places except the One where you will truly find it. Maybe, by walking through the lowest valleys of life, you will find the hand of God that will bring you the peace, the joy, that you so desperately want. Maybe being free from the hold of yourself is the greatest freedom of all.

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