Saturday, May 2, 2009

Freedom!

Tonight I was reading in Psalm 118, particularly verse 5: In my anguish I cried to the Lord and he answered by setting me free. Over the course of this last week God has truly set me free. Let me first say, I love the way he speaks in our life. I was reading a work of fiction last night that mentioned Psalm 118. So, today, I decided to read it, and it was like words right from my mouth to God. It was perfect to express my thanks to Him for the work He has done in this specific situation in my life. It was like the Holy Spirit interceding on my behalf to help me pray what I needed to without even knowing it. And it stemmed from a work of fiction. God is good!


Some of you may know that I recently resigned from my job. I am now a stay-at-home-mom! It is truly exciting, and God really has set me free. Needless to say, there was a lot of detail, thought, prayer, agonizing over, and discussing this decision. It was a long process and I won't bore you with the details, but the important thing is that I learned so much from God as I went through it.


I learned that God does speak to me. He gives me discernment, and I need to grow in my ability to accept that from Him without questioning it. I spent a lot of time in that questioning period, wondering if this was really what God wanted or if it was coming from me. A very wise friend pointed out James 1:1-8 that really helped with that. I realized that God was putting this on my heart because it was His desire. I went throught a very different situation, but with similar questioning about whether I was hearing from God or myself, over the past two years. I only just recently had it confirmed through multiple people in my community that what I was hearing in that situation was from God. And this time I came to that realization faster. So I am learning! He is working in me! That discernment and being able to hear from Him are things I have been praying for for quite awhile, and it is incredible to see those prayers answered!


I also learned that God wants me to be free. Free from evil situations, free from dealing with unethical people, free from concerns about money/finances/security. I'm not saying those things won't come up in various ways at different points in my life. but for them to be all-consuming, taking all of my energy, and robbing me of my joy isn't right. As another good friend put it, God is giving me the joy of this pregnancy and hearing my baby's heartbeat for the first time, and all sorts of other miraculous things. He gives me that joy, and Satan has no right to rob me of it. He can only steal it from me if I let him. So, I am not letting him.


Embarking on this new phase of my life is exciting and scary all at the same time. It is different than anything I have done before. It is out of the normal for me. I know I will be questioned by various people about this decision, and a lot of society will not understand it. But I do. And God does. And my family and community does. I am doing what God wants, and it is the most liberating thing there is. There is still a lot to figure out and work through, but the bottom line is that God is on my side. This is what He wanted, and He isn't going to abandon me now. He will keep showing me how to move forward, I just need to keep allowing Him to do that. This freedom is spilling over into other areas of my life - more to come on that later.

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