6

Six more days.

Today we went to register for a play group while mommy tries out a kickboxing class.  We got there one minute after closing and the doors were locked.  Those people don’t mess around.  We’ll see if I make it back over this week and actually register.

We did our first big grocery shopping trip together.  We got our food for the week and daddy was working late.  That means Henry went with mommy to the store.  I clipped a coupon because the local store sent 4 in the mail – get $4 off $40 or more of groceries.  I brought the coupon for the beginning of April.  I guess I need to learn how to check dates.  Henry did very well.  He started whining when I ran into a girl from high school I haven’t seen in a while.  I think he didn’t like the lack of attention and was getting impatient.  I remember those times when my mom was talking in the store and I just wanted her to stop.  After that I gave Henry my keys and a pen to play with.  I think I picked each up off the floor at least ten times.  They kept him busy (and me too).

I have been thinking a lot about freedom the last couple of days.  Not necessarily national freedom, although that has a huge impact on personal freedom.  I have been thinking about freedom in Christ.  I don’t know if I’ll take the time to write all of my thoughts right now. 

We as people spend so much time protecting our freedoms from the hand of God.  We are so reluctant to give our lives over because of what we think we have to give up.  We spend so much time holding onto the things we want so desperately or the idea of things, that we are actually paralyzed to move forward.  I see it everyday.  People who think they are so free and open in their thoughts, yet they are paralyzed in their lives.  Not because of tragedy but because of not letting go.  It’s such a paradox that the very thing you think would kill you gives you freedom.  I was listening to the man who has taken over Focus on the Family.  About his childhood and his stepparents and their rigidity and lack of expression of love.  How that hurt him and then after all of that (that’s what we tend to say and think), his mom died.  Killer.  Tragedy.  Yet through this deep wound, God was able to set him free from so many other things and God released him from ever believing he needed other things or had the right to other things in his life.  Our strong holds, our rights, our stands (against God so to speak) really only put chains on our wrists and we hold ourselves prisoners.  It’s truly amazing how only God can use a tragedy that you think is going to kill you to break those chains and start to set you free.  When you are free in Christ there is no person, no circumstance, no anything that can touch that freedom.  Not even a literal prison cell.  Not even your past bad choices.  Nothing.  And I have only started to taste.  Oh, to give our lives wholly to Him.  What joy, what freedom that would bring.  Nothing can replicate it.  Nothing.  No job, no money, no child, no relationship, no missionfield, no ministry, no book, no doctor, no success, no reward.  Just God.

These are the thoughts I had today.

Here is what I read in scripture tonight:

John 12:24-26

²⁴ Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. ²⁵ He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶ If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.