true freedom: Christ

crazy how simple it is.
and i think it involves the word 'no'
and it could also include things such as:
restriction, and self-control

but,

it is a life that promotes the worth and value of a person's spirit. it addresses those forces that demean the human spirit and inner beauty.

being a free spirit doesn't mean what i thought it did. it means valuing a full and joyful life, without fear of man, but with a healthy fear of god. loving life enough to protect it from harmful people and situations...i am free to do that, and in doing that, joy.

a free spirit

i think it means passion

freedom...lawlessness
the license to live fully
the licence to ill...whatever
a life without bounds, boundaries
no resistance, no stopping,
no fear...of consequences

i ignored the truth that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. you see, i thought if i was going to be a free spirit i couldn't be afraid, even with a holy fear. because fear would keep me from following some of my impulses, and i refused to be held in a box. a bird has got to fly! my definition of freedom actually crushed my spirit with its consequences. i was wounded, and bitterness and resentment crept in because i was no longer the person i had so wanted to be. i realized i had been deceived. devastation.

guilt

the other sunday i was on stage singing with our worship band, and i looked out the window to see a cop car pull up. i wondered what he was there for and soon found myself a little panicked. do they send out cops for overdue library books? i swear, i turned it in last week! oh, what about that shopping cart i ran into yesterday at the fresh and easy....i'm sure that's what he's here for. or maybe, someone stole my car overnight and used it to commit a terrible crime and then returned it early this morning...why oh why am i so unobservant, this is trouble for sure.....

as i saw the police officer walk up the sidewalk i was tense and expectant, he's gonna get me.

guilt is a funny thing. some people think that guilt is a move of the holy spirit onto our spirits to convict us of sin, but my guilt all the more often is just my obsessions turning into madness in my mind. why would a cop arrest me for running into a shopping cart? does that even make sense? or maybe its a deeper guilt that is revealed through these other things, i'm not sure.

i could feel guilty for anything really, and that is why i am so darn honest (i wanted to write damn there, but i felt bad about it...) i feel the need to confess, if you asked me a personal question you can be assured you'd get an honest answer. if i was having a bad day and was a little rude, or a little less than my smiley self, you can be sure i'd feel bad about that, and may even apologize. i over think things, to put it simply.

but it's tiring, this processing and obsessing. why would i think that my small mistakes would be that important anyways?

the last two days have been about self-consciousness and rest in "my utmost for his highest", which is timely. this rest thing is really getting to me. all the pleasing and worry and awareness of every action related to every reaction of someone else....draining. where is my peace, where is my rest. i'm tired of thinking of how i am perceived, whether or not i just said that correctly, whether i am too quiet or too talky, and the fact that my nervous energy makes my hands a spectacle. and ultimately i'm tired of thinking that any of these things have to be defined in my mind as "right" or "wrong"

i'm guilty, i know that. but i'm also wholly forgiven. i'm just waiting for the day when i can be okay with that, and move on.