Live Free - A Year of Release

A handful of years ago, I began to ask for a word that would help me navigate the season I was in.  The first word God gave me was renaissance or rebirth.  After a few years of living in a dessert spiritually, I can't tell you how much that word filled me with hope.  It was a process, but Jesus began restoring my faith that year.

The following year was joy.  Oh, what a simple word.  Three letters.  But with my heart, newly restored, joy was everywhere.  Even in the mundane, everyday, ordinary life.  Joy is everywhere.  And I learned joy usually began with a choice, and a submission of expectations.

Last year my word was embrace.  It was a year full of the unknown, full of trial, full of new beginnings, full of endings.  And I was being asked to embrace it all.  Not argue with it, not analyze it, not fear it, not control it.  I was being asked to embrace what Jesus had in store for our family, not question it.  And I won't lie, it was hard.  Looking back now, I realize that without clinging to Him, I probably would've floundered or given up or given in to bitterness or anger.  I needed that embrace.

In December, I was sitting at the same bluff I have been going to for so many years and for so many seasons.  It overlooks the beach where Aaron asked me to be his wife.  It is the place where friends and family have had wedding photos taken.  I was there out of obedience because it was the week of rest for the bible study we were going through.  I was in the car, with my sweet son in the back screaming to leave, when I heard the word release.  This is the definition I found when I came home:

Full Definition of RELEASE

transitive verb

1:  to set free from restraint, confinement, or servitude; also :  to let go :  dismiss 

2:  to relieve from something that confines, burdens, or oppresses 

3:  to give up in favor of another :  relinquish 

4:  to give permission for publication, performance, exhibition, or sale of; also :  to make available to the public 

intransitive verb

:  to move from one's normal position in order to assume another position or to perform a second assignment

So much of what I have been hearing in my spirit is that we need to live in freedom.  Chris Cain says that so many of us are enjoying our deliverance, but we have yet to step into freedom.  I think Jesus is releasing us to be free to be exactly who He created us to be.  To live free from what others think, what the world prescribes, what we fear, what we expect.  To live a life that has not just been rescued, but a life that has been set FREE.

I'm not exactly sure what this year has in store.  I do know that I am spending time and purposing in my heart to release those things that so easily entangle me - fear, expectations, opinions, obligations.  I'm trading it in for freedom.  I'm relinquishing my selfishness so I can be used to help others.  

I don't know where you are today - living captive, living delivered, or living free.  I am praying that maybe reading these words will stir something inside your heart to step one step closer to freedom.  To nudge your heart towards release.  I have a feeling what awaits us is so much better than all we have held onto.

I designed this little image to help me remember that this is a year of release and to LIVE FREE!

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