True Freedom

Its hard to explain how one single revelation about yourself can change every single aspect of your life. In discovering how fear motivated I have been and seeing how it influenced the very lifestyle we have chosen to live, that fear has totally lost its hold on me. In fairness there have been other contributing factors to the how and why we live such a homestead life. First off we were poor in for many years and I guess that was difficult for me emotionally and the very best way for me to deal with that was to make it a lifestyle, a choice, rather than have it appear as a sentence to endure. It was a choice since we left a comfortable lifestyle because our girls were becoming incredibly spoiled in the Southern California lifestyle. It happens. You have money to spend and so doesn't everyone around you but when your 8 year old refuses a Milky Way candy bar and says, "but mother, I much prefer Godiva" you know you might just have some problems in the future when it comes to the material world unless you make some changes, which we did. Took off for the mountains of Oregon and lived a very simple humble life for one year. Working off our land, and having our first milk goats and chickens. Emery needed the break from the corporate world and I needed to live the life I had dreamed of since I was a young teenager. Our children are the great people they are today because of the life style we chose to live, which was simple. They were raised apart from the fear I learned as a child regarding end time events etc. It made a big difference for them, but we took them on a fear journey non the less. Our time in the plain world was full of the fear of not measuring up to this rule or that rule. Was God displeased because I didn't live up to all those lines in Proverbs 31 all of the time ? Was my dress too thin ? Why was I longing to hear musical instruments when I was told it was wrong ? And were we going to raise rebellious children because we didn't spank them for every small thing that was deemed a sign of rebellion ? In time we pulled away from that life, seeing it as one more fearful look at Gods love for us.

So here I sit today, free from the death grip of living in some kind of fear. Tired of exchanging one fear for another. Fear of end times, fear of not measuring up to super woman, fear of making God mad at me. Fear of the questions that constantly fill my head that I was told I should never have. Questions about what does God really want, and is what I have been told all my life, really truth ?

This new freedom has given me a gift that is beyond words. I feel more, see more, hear more, and honestly I feel like I have been given wings. I don't constantly feel guilty for things that have nothing to do with the who that I am. Wanting a clothes dryer is a small thing, and embracing technology that God allowed man to create feels good as good as it did to milk the goat and watch the chickens this morning with new motivation. Life is good and better yet when fear is out of the equation. My step has a spring to it that has been gone for decades and peace fills my heart and soul from beginning to end.