Does freedom mean that you are allowed to do whatever you want to do?

Or we could talk about all the limiting influences in your life that actively

work against your freedom.  Your family genetic heritage, your specific

DNA, your metabolic uniqueness, the quantum stuff that is going on at a 

subatomic level where only I am the always-present observer.  Or the 

intrusion of your soul’s sickness that inhibits and binds you, or the 

social influences around you, or the habits that have created synaptic

bonds and pathways in your brain.  And then there’s advertising, propaganda,

and paradigms.  Inside that confluence of multifaceted inhibitors,’ she sighed,

‘what is freedom really?’

Mack just stood there not knowing what to say.

‘Only I can set you free, Mackenzie, but freedom can never be forced.’

‘I don’t understand,’ replied Mack.  ’I don’t even understand what

you just told me.’

She turned back and smiled.  ’I know.  I didn’t tell you so that you

would understand right now.  I told you for later.  At this point,

you don’t even comprehend that freedom is an incremental process.’

Gently reaching out, she took Mack’s hands in hers, flour covered

and all, and looking him straight in the eyes she continued,

‘Mackenzie, the Truth shall set you free and the Truth has

a name; he’s over in the woodshop right now covered in sawdust.

Everything is about him.  And freedom is the process that happens

inside a relationship with him.  Then all that stuff you feel churnin’

around inside will start to work its way out.’

~The Shack by William P. Young~

 

There are days when I’d like to hide my head in the sand.  

When I admit that, I always feel like I need to back-pedal and say that I am blessed beyond measure and know it with my whole heart, that I have been granted more joy than some unfortunate souls will ever taste, that I love my kids and my husband and our life together so much that there aren’t enough words to tell you, and that I would never trade Life at the Circus for all the world.  I am so thankful for the all enormous loves in my life that it would take pages to write it down, and still I wouldn’t be finished.

But there are days when I’d like to hide my head in the sand.  So, here’s the truth:  I am a free spirit.  

It’s true that I live life with a lot of self-discipline, planning, and organization, but this is a requirement in my line of work.  When you are the ringmaster, the lion-tamer, the tight rope walker, a trapeze artist, the woman wearing all the sequins, and the clown driving the little-bitty clown car all at the same time, and there are three main acts happening concentrically with you participating equally in each one, there is little choice but to live within some non-negotiable constraints.  I operate fairly well within the structure I am forced to impose upon myself, but free spirits are prone to rebellion.

It’s rebellion that causes me to turn into a corner and clinch my fists and indulge in a little private GRRRRRR when we’re trying to get our kids settled into bed and Adam cannot find the 500th specific stuffed animal he has selected to pile upon himself and follows me around the house asking me to help him find it; Riley, exhausted and melting down and clinging to me (“But Mom, I just want to be with you all the time…”), is weeping bitter tears about missing her friends and wanting to play outside and could we please plan something (anything…she just loves plans); and Zoe must have the perfect hair ornament and bun twisted on top of her head (even though she’s going to bed—she likes to sleep pretty).  Please note: this occurs at once.  Is it any wonder that I sometimes secretly want to walk to the front door, open it, and just run?  Wasn’t it David who wrote, “OH that I had the wings of a dove!  I would fly away and be at rest-I would flee far away…(Psalm 55, verses 6 and 7).”

Or, dial back just a few hours earlier and I am making supper, signing papers from school, supervising and checking over homework, folding laundry, threatening extra writing assignments (5 things you LOVE about your sister) to silence squabbles, answering 1000 questions (“Mom, how do you spell BOSSY?!”), praying for a friend who has a major burden on her heart, wondering if there is something I can possibly do to help someone else with so much more on her plate than I have on mine (because truly this is what I love to do), wishing I could call one family member or friend a day to catch up (and sometimes trying), and incredibly, though my heart wants to be completely unselfish (or at least the Spirit within is pulling for it), I indulge in a bit of rebellion.  In the midst of trying to be unselfish, I become incredibly self-centered.  OH, I wish I could… is like a snake curling around my joy and squeezing out all the life.  When my selfishness creeps in, Responsibility feels suffocating.  The process of fighting with my own selfishness is exhausting.  My free spirit throws temper tantrums, knocking and beating about in my flesh like an angry animal in a cage.

So, I have my own brand of freedom therapy that gets me through the days when my Responsibilities feel like a cocoon.  I lock myself in the bathroom for a few minutes.  Standing at the sink, I skim through magazines like Coastal Living and Travel and Leisure and imagine that I’m strolling down one of those gorgeous white-sand beaches in a bikini.  Some of you are thinking, A bikini?! and others of you already understand.  My free Spirit longs to shed all the constraints that govern my life, and I wish to be as bare (of life’s STUFF) as I can be.  In those moments, if I could shed my body, I’d do exactly that.   Since I can’t, I want to feel the sun on my shoulders, the breeze dancing on my skin, the water reaching for my feet.  Just me and God…that’s what I long for…and hours to think and pray.  I want to sprint down the beach until my muscles throb and sweat drenches my face (because I am much, much, much more than muscles and skin and bone), jump in the ocean and wash off, and then fall asleep on the beach while my free spirit plays in my dreams.  I want absolutely none of the details of this life standing between me and the best relationship I’ve ever known—the love of a God whose Love is so big He must pour out power on me so that I can begin to understand it.  At the beach, it’s like His face is pressed up against mine and His fingers are thredded through my own.  I feel His power and peace in perfect rhythm, and all the details that push me around, frothing my life into a mad pace like unbidden tormentors, are washed away in the surf.  So, I go there for a few minutes.  Then I breathe deeply, unlock the bathroom door, and get with it.

Last week, I finished reading The Shack.  I love that book.  It’s not that the book provided a deep epiphany for me, but actually more that it articulated a description of the relationship I know with the God I love.  As I sat with Mack as he ate dinner with the Trinity, or worked in the garden with Mack and the Holy Spirit,  or took a walk with Mack and Jesus, I relished the freedom and joy of that phenomenal communion.  The most insightful moment of all (for me) came when Mack and Papa had a conversation about freedom.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve longed to feel free in those head-in-the-sand moments.  I realized, reading The Shack, that I tend to get a little lost in selfishness and see it all the wrong way.  It’s not that I am confined within my life and occasionally get to break free.  It’s that I am always free and choose constraints (for as long as I reside in this body) for the sake of those I love.  That’s a very different thing.  It’s not that I’ve been thrown into a prison, but that I’ve chosen to take up a cross.  In His awesome and fabulous way, God reminded me that this is exactly what Christ did for me, on a much, much, much larger scale, since He left heaven by choice to be a man and die and live again.  He chose to limit Himself for a time so that one day I could be free indeed.  It’s humbling, you know, to realize that my free spirit tantrums about all the Responsibility that comes with living out the abundance of my blessings.  There are those in this world who are truly imprisoned.  It’s my freedom to choose to limit myself for a while, so that my children can one day also be free.  To live is Christ.

I am reminded well that these desperate cravings for freedom, those head-in-the-sand moments, are one of my greatest blessings of all.  When my free spirit knocks about inside this flesh, it’s just a reminder that heaven is my home, and from time to time, I just feel a little homesick.  To live is Christ, to die is gain.  

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.~2 Corinthians 3: 17, 18  

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. ~1 Corinthians 13:12