sweet tennessee

A week ago i flew to Nashville, Tennessee to reunite with my Windy Gap family for the weekend. i believe that God can reach us in any situation, but in this case it took going to another state for me to learn a couple valuable bits of wisdom.

i cannot write this without talking about freedom, because that has been the theme of this current season of my life. And freedom is exactly what Jesus gave me as i drove down those Tennessee highways, surrounded by clean air and brilliant trees and friends who were hand-picked for me by my King himself.

Another kind of freedom dawned on me too... involving my relationship status. That Friday night we went to a concert where a significant percentage of the audience was believers, and i met some great people that reminded me of my community back in Austin. One thing about my wonderful community is our tendency to get caught up in thoughts such as, "Well this is it. This is our pool of people [to date]" and, "It's the ideal place to meet my spouse..." and, "i'm running out of time..." and, "What am i doing wrong?" 

What are we doing wrong? We're limiting God. i can't say i've gone off the deep end in these thoughts, but i'll admit they definitely apply to me. And last weekend God said, "See! Don't waste time worrying, planning, scheming, because you don't even know what is out there. I am limitless. My plans for you are beyond your capacity of understanding." And just like that, i felt free.

i got to fly home to Austin with one of those hand-picked friends, and she has a thing for letter-writing. In October she wrote me a note opening with this:

"Galatians 5:1– 'It is for FREEDOM that Christ has set us free. Stand firm and do not let yourselves be burdened by a yoke of slavery.' FREEDOM. I hope today you're chasing that instead of affection or self-righteousness or earthly crowns. Just freedom. Open-handed and playfully saying YES to spontaneity. 'You, my SISTER, were called to be free...'"

Open-handed, playful, unchained. He set you and i free two thousand years ago for us to live in freedom.