There is so much rhetoric spinning around, it is so easy to get knocked off balance by a thousand different things floating past us in lightning speed. The "independent" spirit of our country, which having grown up in a military home, is so very dear to my heart! I am so thankful, as I sit here, to the dozens of friends that are serving in the military around this world. I pray for your protection . . . I pray for your families back home . . . I pray for the mystery of grace to be overwhelmingly bountiful to overshadow the loss and emptiness that these days bring to all of you. So much of what I enjoy costs others everything . . . I'm humbled . . . I'm indebted to their love and sacrifice.
I also have been re-visisted by the freedom of life and friendship. I have a dear friend, who just kissed goodbye to a dear beloved loved one as she slipped into the embrace of eternity's joy and love. It stirred my own echoes of loss again . . . a place that continues to not sit well within the pit of my stomach. A haunting that continues to creep up in a nauseating stir . . . I wonder as I sit here when "freedom" will speak to that place.
There is also a freedom to trust again that begins to gingerly make its way to my reality. I have several who have not faded . . . not relinquished . . . not turned away during the nastiness of times. They see something . . . believe in one, truer than I often can trust in. If I attempt to name any or all, I am so shortsighted, for they desire not to be on a list, but rather to be known. Yes, I know each of you by name, and you to me as well! Even if we are apart, the shade of your friendship casts a cool breeze over an unsettled heart and an encouraging glory to believe and dream. Again, thankfulness and humility stir. I feel life force forward as I linger there . . . creativity, vulnerability, risk . . . all began to take shape and movement. Hmmmmmm , love, devotion, sacrifice, risk, cost . . . all similar themes in different places, but true to the One who disperses His gifts among us.
But take everything else away and the one constant trust that daily stands in my existence is family. My wife and my children continue to journey with me in ways that cannot be explained or expressed deeply enough. They are the ones that I truly pray will dance for years to come in the environment that we have explored and shared together . . . this place of freedom and grace. To share years with one that even in the midst of loss, disappointment, hurt and misunderstanding , continues to endeavor to learn and exhibit the very heart of a Father who has believed, loved and trusted with so much. We have shared that life with children . . . who are now into the "adult years" learning on their own all that that same Father is desiring for their hearts to rest into as well. It's painful, at times, to watch them suffer loss, failure, betrayal, pain . . . but I know, somewhere deep inside my soul, that they will discover "freedom" in ways that I have only dreamed of. Maybe that is it . . . maybe my dreams have often been more attached to their unfolding paths - more than my securing anything further. Yes, that seems so TRUE! My "independence" is really attached to believe and hope in the betterment of those I love deepest. . . . Again . . . similar symphony expressing itself in other tunes and scores . . .
Yes, I sense a calmness in that place. A rest that is "unsettled" in one sense , but yet so solid that you know will endure and be fulfilled as those that I love dearest taste those very dreams as realities for themselves.
Freedom . . . more for others than myself . . .
maybe I am . . .
FREE
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