When Freedom Feels Terrifying

“I realize now what it feels like to be free and it’s absolutely terrifying” I sputtered as I sat across from Josh at our dining room table. 

It’s been an intense past 6 months, to say the least. My whole world being reshaped and rescued. Freedom can feel terrifying to those who have believed they’ve been in bondage their whole lives. Noticed I say believed, meaning that I’ve only been enslaved to the level of bondage I believe I’m in. 

It hit me like a ton of bricks one day as I was driving home from a short trip to the consignment shop. The incredible amounts of freedom I now have through Christ. Being completely made knew through Christ in God. How powerful. The free will given to man by God because only where there is free will can there be a true relationship. And I felt that all come crumbling down that evening sitting sobbing in the kitchen. 

” Love hasn’t been keeping me here” I admitted to Josh as my whole motherhood and marriage flashed before my eyes. And in an instant, I realized I was merely staying married and being a mother because I thought I had to. 

Now don’t freak out. Let me explain.

All these years I thought I had to get married because I was afraid of making a wrong decision. So I tried to make the right decision by marrying. Then I thought it was the right thing to do to have children and here I am 5 years later feeling like a victim to my life feeling like when I tried so hard to do the ” right thing” God left me abandoned drowning in the overwhelm of parenting and heartache of marriage. Why would God punish me for only trying to do the right thing? Anyone else feel this sometimes? 

But in that instant sitting at my kitchen table with tears streaming down my face, I realized that the reason I was staying married to Josh and staying at home with my babies was not that I chose to do it out of love ( I didn’t even think that was an option!) but rather because I thought it was my duty, my obligation, and my sentence. This sounds worse and worse the more I write this out. Lol But I never thought I had free will to chose. Does this even make sense? I realized for the first time that I could walk out of that front door if I wanted to. That I could actually leave my husband and children if I wanted to. And for the first time in my life, I felt like I actually chose my marriage and my children. That it wasn’t something that just happened to me. 

But a tremendous gift given to me, to love my husband, enjoy life with him, nurture and raise my children and smother them with love and kisses. 

I don’t know why life has just felt so hard in motherhood and marriage lately but when i chose them. Actually realized I had a choice in the matter and chose to love them, care for them and stay, it all the sudden felt so easy. 

We make choices everyday whether we realize it or not. And when we choose things, things that are good, holy and from the Lord, they shouldn’t feel hard. Sure there will be difficult days and hard circumstances but it should never feel like your drowning with no way out. But choosing something from God allows him to effortlessly work in and through us, enabling us to do the right thing. and from that place of willfully choosing comes grace and ease and joy. 

It was like a flip switched in me that next day and I didn’t dread waking up ( let’s be realistic – being woke up by my kids) and facing my day. My actions seamlessly flowed from my decision to chose them. I’m not a victim of my children, in bondage of my dishes and duties. But rather privileged to be able to chose this life I get to live. 

So whatever it is you feel in bondage to today, maybe it’s not actually bondage but what you chose to believe instead. Just like the children of Israel. Their fight to freedom looked much harder than simply staying in bondage in Egypt. But God helped them fight their battles on behalf of them. They already had all they needed, all the freedom they were desiring- they just needed to drive out their enemies and trust God that they were free. They just had to act out on it and believe God for it. And every choice we make with God brings us further and further into that freedom he has already given to us as well.