A Daily Dose of Freedom

For years, I profusely labored on the back of an “invisible dump truck” swatting annoying flies. It didn’t make much sense in the natural cause society doesn’t find much significance in ladies that freely choose physical labor. It wasn’t a coveted position. No one stood in line for this landfill type of responsibility. Actually, people took pleasure in tossing contaminants in my direction regularly. It was my job to clean up the mess! It was an automatic chore that assumed the responsibility of my hands. I was the help!  There wasn’t any glory attached, because there wasn’t a huge demand for “grunt work” found buried beneath discarded debris. It was all mine to claim and onlookers treated me accordingly. They sized me up with extra precaution based on my surroundings. They ignored my heart cause my hands were filled with oversized garbage bags. Consequently, my hands were always full. I was a self-proclaimed expert at making something out of nothing! In fact, I assumed I...

I don’t like to make tough “life decisions,” while lying on my back starring at a bleak ceiling of indecision.  I don’t like to be backed in a corner of chaos where limited choices force me into fight or flight action. I don’t particularly like when the enemy fires shots at my safety nest and forces me into uncharted territory. All of these things...just happened—at once.  The springs collapsed and the bottom dropped out of my foundation, while I was napping. My rear end collided abruptly with an unfavorable “wake up” call. It just got real. I unknowingly inherited a man made dysfunction. My “proactive” attitude couldn’t withstand the wiles of the wilderness. The enemy was determined to sabotage my place of rest. Typically,  my  emotions navigate the storms when I find myself shipwrecked.  Everything in me wanted to fall apart. My weary soul wanted to crawl in a defiled bed of desperation, draw the blinds and mentally check-out...

Yesterday, I watched with great pride as one of my spiritual sisters removed the training wheels and rode boldly into uncharted territory. I witnessed her courage as she suited up in God’s armor and dived right into the water as she lead and taught our Bible Study class. I whispered a quiet prayer and observed her obvious nervousness become irrelevant. She took the reigns in His power and stood firmly in complete submission to the Holy Spirit. I was thrilled for her but sad for me. I wasn’t coveting her assignment but I grew more concerned about mine. Had fear caused my hands to fumble God’s ordained gift? Had I forfeited God’s mission to pursue my own? Had disobedience caused me to linger in stagnant water and self-contaminate? Somehow, I managed to bury my feet in the sand along the sideline to secure lifeguard duty. My “tribe” repeatedly yelled for me to join them in the water; however, the sand was my safe haven. It supported the weight of my most intimate vulnerabil...

Although writing is therapeutic for me, I find myself "disconnected" from my laptop for months at a time. Life drifts away from the palms of my hands,  because my attention is frequently diverted to the tedious tasks that accompanies paying bills, staying hidden underneath my security blanket, and surviving. Yesterday, was a "bad" day for me. I tried to bubble wrap my emotional scars in a temporary, bandaged routine that became counterproductive. The recent attacks caught me off guard. The enemy found me drifting on autopilot and it bruised my ego. I took "hits" for others in silence. I didn't flinch. I didn't respond. I just endured. I put on a strong front but on the inside I was unraveling. Every move forward felt like I was stepping on landmines. I became stuck in the same fight because I kept picking up the wrong weapons. Then acted surprised by the "flesh wounds" left behind. Are you waddling in the "pity pond" of un...