Ohhh freedom...freedom...freedom!!!!

So around my birthday I often pause to think about freedom since my birthday falls 3 days after Independence Day. I've been thinking about it in a different way this year. Normally, I think about a day at the pool, queso, brownies, and time with friends. That of course hasn't changed. I had the best time laying at the pool with my friends. But the way I define freedom has changed.

How do you define freedom?

Now, I could look it up and in Webster's dictionary an get the official definition or Urban Dictionary and find something too inappropriate for this blog. But here are a few definitions that I think the world uses for freedom:

1. Freedom as we define in the United States. We think of freedom as a combination of the ability to believe what we want, express those beliefs and feelings, and make basic choices in our lives. We fight for freedom and to preserve it.
2. Free will: The freedom to guide our own lives. This is the thought that fate or destiny doesn't guide our lives, but that it is us that directs our paths.
2. Freedom to do what we please. This reminds me of how i felt in college and in high school. I wanted to be free of my parents and do whatever I wanted to do. Unfortuantely that ended up in my wise decisions that usually got me in a lot of mess.

This year I came upon a new freedom. A freedom that is in a sense the complete opposite of the world's view of freedom. This year I gave up control of my life. The control I created made me a slave to the expectations of the world.

A new friend told me about a dream that she had recently in which she saw writing on the wall that said:

Submission + Repentance = Freedom.

How can that be freedom? To submit to someone else's will and to turn your back on the way you have lived your life?

It's true it's hard to understand unless you experience it, but it's such a different freedom. It's the freedom you feel when you are a small child and you know that your parents are watching you. There is so much freedom in knowing that there is a greater plan and your worth is not in anything of this world. Thank God for that! If my worth is in this world, than this is a sad life to live. Watch the news...you'll see what I mean.

As I type this, I am watching Cool Runnings. In it the coach says, "A gold medal is a great thing, but it means nothing if you're not enough without it."

That is a perfect definition of the slavery we put ourselves in. I am free to be me!! Just me. Not the definition that I or society has put on me. Free to be me apart from expectations that I have put on myself.

So this year, I celebrate freedom in my life!! Now, if you haven't heard this song, you need to!

Only the World by Mandisa

Been a hard one
Been a bad one
Been a tough one
Been a sad one
It's been just one of those days
That keeps chipping away at my heart
Nothin' new here
It's what I do here
It's a stereotypical day in the life
I'm surrounded by all of the pain and the strife
But I know it's alright

'Cause it's only the world I'm living in
It's only today I've been given
There ain't no way I'm giving in
'Cause it's only the world
I know the best is still yet to come
'Cause even when my days in the world are done
There's gonna be so much more than only the world for me

Anybody, can you hear me?
Do you feel me?
I mean do you feel me?
I know I'm not the only one wearing the weight of this world
We got problems, said it's alright
Just remember, yeah it's alright
Take a good look around
We're just stuck on the ground for a little while
Don't it make you smile

Heaven is a place
Where the tears on every face will be wiped away
Oh and I can't wait to go
But for now, it's enough to know
This is only temporary