Freedom to Retreat~Guest Blogging Day

Image Courtesy of Michal Marchol/freedigitalphotos.net

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.  Matthew 11: 29-30

I recall a several years back when a young mother went missing from the small village in which we were living at the time.  The local news was covering it quite closely because she had indicated to her employer that she had noticed someone following her on her way to work; and then she never returned from her break.  Once I learned that she was a single mom of a young child, I thought to myself, "she ran away."  I thought this, not in a judgmental way, rather in an empathetic way.  You see, I once wanted to run away too.  It wasn't too long before the news reporters revealed that the young mother had been located and that she had, indeed, run away on her own.  

I could not judge her, because I had once considered the same.

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Freedom to Thrive ~ Guest Blogging Day

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.  Matthew 6:24 NIV

Tomorrow, America celebrates her independence.  For some reason, I'm ultra-excited for the Fourth of July this year, and I think it's because of our recent move out west.  We live among the mountains now, and I can't wait to see fireworks with the mountains as their backdrop.  But, I also want to immerse myself in FREEDOM...I feel as though this move from the Midwest to the West has a type of "freedom cry" to it. 

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How this "Jacked Up" Mom Found Freedom at Bratfest~Guest Blogging Day

Evie and I are in the photo on the lower left, I have a cowboy hat on...right by the gate...

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  Matthew 6:19-21 NIV
 
Have you ever had one of those days when God gives you a very clear message?  It's actually more than a clear message; it is a repeated message told to you over and over again.  It's so clear that you want to throw your hands up and say, "Okay, okay!  I get it, already!"

That happened to me...this past Memorial Day weekend...at a festival founded on the celebration of...

Bratwurst?

Let me set up the story a little for you first.

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Hope is the Anchor for my Soul

What Christ has given us is unfathomable.  He has become our Great High Priest, pleading for us, approaching the Holy of Holies on our behalf.  He took our filth upon himself, suffered the pain of separation from the Heavenly Father, and tore down the veil that once kept us from approaching the throne of God.  

Anchors away...set sail with the spirit of Freedom and Courage...

The Hostage

I was trapped; held hostage in a repetitive cycle of sin.  I would tell myself it was not my fault, that they had chosen to eat from the Tree; not me.  Why should I suffer for what they had chosen to do?

I was captured; held hostage in a prison of fear.  There was sickness, pain, and death everywhere I turned.  But wasn’t it Cain who killed Able?  So long ago that it was the Genesis, yet now we see it all around us. 

I was corned; surrounded by walls of hopelessness, doubt, and confusion.  He stood there staring me down with vicious eyes. “You will follow me…” he sneered, “Bow down, I’ve arrested thee.”

I raised my bound hands, and silently dropped the mustard seed that I held pinched between my fingers.  I knew it was my only hope. The seed shattered on the barren cement floor of my prison cell, and what had once been a tiny seed became hundreds of eagles.  They beat their wings; creating a wind that would have blown down even the strongest trees.  I had to close my eyes against the force of the fierce wind, but I heard the eagles’ shrieking cries as they clawed at my captor and crushed his head.  

Then suddenly I was free.  My hands were no longer shackled.  In fact, I raised them high; extending them toward the man who hung in my place.  He wore the crown of a king, but hung lifeless where I had once hung.  I saw the blood which poured out from him when he had made the exchange; Him for me. 

My captor had fallen; he lay lifeless on the floor of the cell. 

My ransom had been paid; although all I had was a mustard seed, it was enough.  I was no longer a prisoner, I was free.  Now my mission would be to tell the world of the man who became a hostage in exchange for me.

Written in response to the One Minute Writer prompt~The Hostage