Free

I'm free praise, the Lord I'm free
no longer bound, no more chains holding me
my soul is resting, oh what a blessing
praise the Lord, hallelujah I'm free

Simple words as they may be they were very poignant this sabbath as I listened to one of my bestest friends preach. The theme for her sermon was Free. It really got me to thinking about my own freedom. Compared to my husband he would say I probably display the life of someone still held back and not entirely free. Would I say he was wrong? Well not entirely he is one of the most free people I know. He has no inhibitions and enjoys a life of always saying what he means and having no regrets. By comparison I am not the same way.

Recently I have been experiencing a lot of unexplained anger. The slightest thing will set me off. I get frustrated very easily and most days experience some sort of isolation feelings and feel generally unappreciated and unnoticed. None of it makes any sense and I have been desperately trying to fight those feelings but they come like waves all over me. Occasionally I have felt myself slipping to a dark and angry place and have had to fight for what feels like my life to get back from it. So on sabbath when I heard this sermon and the question rang out are you really free in Christ? I could feel the answer slipping back to me, no.

Then I read on Twitter Rick Warren say:

"FREEDOM is not the absence of limit. It is the POWER God graciously offers you to say YES to what’s right & NO to wrong."

So here I sit with a weekend filled with talk of freedom and me trying desperately to contain a side of me that I am not particularly proud of. Unfortunately there was no miracle answer and Monday morning hasn't made it any clearer but I realized something that no matter what was going on with my emotions I had a made a choice not to let them rule me. So I started this Monday morning safe in the knowledge that I am free to decide the person I want to be. I don't want to be angry and frustrated but when those feelings arise, and they do frequently at the moment, I am free to say no I choose to be something other than angry.

It's not perfect yet I still have flaws to fix in behavior at this times but the more I practice the better it gets. Each time I practice reacting differently than my emotions would have me it gets the tiniest bit easier than the time before. My mum says I was born with a short temper, while I am not sure I agree with her I think I am quite the opposite. My emotional responses recently have been sometimes more than I can bear. But each time I try to recognize where I am and be free indeed. So I am free. Free to be the best version of myself that God inspires and strengthens me to be.