We are always in process. We aren’t where we started, but we aren’t at our grand finale yet, either. We are slowly working and being worked on. Yielding and giving way to more or less of what we were before. We grow slowly, imperceptibly sometimes…and then, sometimes we grow in a flaming and wild burst.
Either way, the growth we see comes at a cost. We have to give up what we were before. We have to move away from what we knew to be true previously, letting go of the grip of the familiar one tightly grasped finger at a time. Sometimes my fists ball up at the very thought of leaving the familiar.
Comfort, familiarity, and health. Those are high on the list of my priorities in life. I wouldn’t say as much, and it’s mortifying to admit. I say that I want adventure and to live wild and free. But, my actions and my deep-down thoughts betray me.
You see? I like my kids’ four star schools, and I get totally annoyed if my grocery store doesn’t have every obscure ingredient I need, and I think 2 days is too long to wait to get something from Amazon. I like my air conditioning set at 70 in the summer and 74 in the winter…an extravagant way to average out at a nice 72 degrees year-round.
I don’t know if it’s my selfishness or my people-pleasing that keeps me from living wild and free, from going on great adventures, and from living with abandon. And, maybe deep down people-pleasing is selfishness. I mostly people-please because I don’t want to deal with the discomfort that comes from people thinking less than amazing thoughts about me. The horror.
And really, the horror?
The horror is really that maybe I’d live my whole life without getting dirty and living real with people and without serving someone other than myself and my blood. What shocks me is to think that I’m more afraid of letting people down than I am of actually doing something big and powerful. I’d do the huge, scary thing in a heartbeat–because I have faith that God would see me through. But, deep-down, I wonder if His love is enough to cover the self-doubt and the anxiety that comes when someone doesn’t love my decision.
I want to live in a way that makes me come alive. I want other women to be free to really feel alive. I want to flat out live in the freedom of the greatest news.
It is for freedom that we’ve been set free. In our freedom, we can encourage others to be free. But, if we live tied down–oh, how that betrays us and shines a light on a basic disbelief of the gospel.
Whoosh.