When I Think of Freedom

I’ve had this girlish fantasy for a few years now.  It’s a little vain, maybe, but the desire remains.  You know those photos or commercials you see of women in flowing white dresses, running across green, flower-clad meadows?  I want a picture of myself being that woman.  I want to wear a long, wispy dress that fans out all around me as I twirl in circles with my eyes closed, arms outstretched, palms facing the sky, head upturned, with a smile welcoming the sunbeams that kiss my face in response.  I want to laugh in elation at the wonder and joy of life.  There are no bounds to my meadow.  Trees dot the landscape here and there, but there are no mountains or forests that enclose it, caging me in.

 




 

I want to feel free and confident – not the kind of confident that comes with lots of people telling you how awesome you are, or that you’re really funny, or that you should write a book or become a counselor.  Rather, the confidence that comes with a steadfast faith in the Giver of your identity.  And this confidence is hard to come by for me because I look for my identity in all the wrong things.  Like other people.  Because, at the end of the day, one of my greatest desires is for people to know me.  Really know me.  Know me and love me in such an impossible way that, after they’ve failed me a few/lot of times, I remember again that I really just want them to be Jesus.

 

I want Jesus in all the people from whom I seek attention and affirmation.  I want perfect pursuit.  Perfect, servant-hearted love.  The kind that makes me feel safe, like I’m not an annoying toddler who keeps spilling her milk or making a mess of the pretty table arrangement or being too loud when important things are happening.  I want Jesus in someone to look at me in my mess, pick me up, and wrap me up in their arms, laughing at how cute I am just because I’m alive.  And I want Jesus in someone to hold me close against their chest and hum soothing melodies and sing songs over me.  And I want, well, Him to speak life over my life and hold me in His arms and stroke my hair until I fall asleep.  Secure, blissful, peaceful rest.

 



 

I recently started working in a psychiatric hospital/residential treatment center.  I work in one of the children’s units, where kids enter in a state of crisis.  Most of them have some kind of abusive background, and many are self-harming and suicidal.  In order to protect the kids and/or ourselves from various forms of danger, we sometimes have to put them in therapeutic holds. One of my coworkers calls it “wrapping them up,” this action of restraining their arms behind their backs and seating them on the ground until they can calm down, process, and remember that there are coping skills that don’t involve stabbing their peers with pencils or punching door handles.  And once we feel certain that the child’s response to the situation will look different and better than before, we communicate that it’s time to slowly get up, verbally process through what happened, and return to the normal day’s activities.

 



 

When I think about the concept of freedom, all of these pictures feel vaguely familiar, like I’ve been in each of them at one point or another.  And it all makes me wonder if freedom comes in different forms.  It’s a woman dancing in a field without limits or a baby sleeping in a secure embrace or a kid who took freedom too far and needs to be redirected to a better expression of it – for her good.  And I wonder if freedom is sometimes accessing the liberty of saying yes but also embracing the maturity in saying no.

 

Rob Bell said something like that in Velvet Elvis, writing that “Freedom is not having everything we crave, it’s being able to go without the things we crave and being OK with it.”

 

That makes sense to me, because it tells me that when I’m free, I’m not a slave to anything.

 

I stumbled upon a verse awhile back that paints the perfect Scripture picture of my fantasy.  Psalm 119:45 in the ESV says, “and I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts.”  In the NIV, it states, “I will walk about in freedom.”

 

I feel like I’ve been drifting around pretty aimlessly these past couple of months.  It makes me tired.  Tired of paving my own road to freedom and sucking at it.

 

It’s kind of ironic to me that pursuing holy boundaries – following the steps of the Maker – would lead to the real thing, the freedom that is pure and good and confident and safe.  Something about denying yourself and taking up your cross, right?  And even though I still mostly get it, the rebellious child in me wants to buck against authority and do what I want.

 

Or get picked up and rocked to sleep.

 

When I awake, I will see you face to face and be satisfied. Psalm 17:15

 

The Art of Letting Go

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I walked past the open door, my travel mug refilled, ready to once again plug away at figuring out how the next few months of my life would look after leaving Echo Ranch Bible Camp.

But the outside beckoned me.  Maybe it was You.  I don’t know what it was, but something told me not to go back downstairs, isolated, a slave to the Internet’s grand and varied offers for what my future could look like.

So I went.

This summer, with all my intents and purposes of growing, improving, and letting go, was exactly not that kind of season.  It was a season of holding on.  Holding on to what if?s in a recently ended relationship, projected hopes of a new Christian community, expectations of my stunning performance as a leader, and above all, the confidence that I would know exactly what I would be doing with my life once it was all over.

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I walked past the Purple Bench.  I had originally intended on stopping there.  Maybe sitting down and enjoying the view of… the bath house?  Or maybe just the feeling of sitting in the sun.  But I kept walking.  I didn’t really know why.  Maybe I would go lie down in the middle of the sports field.  Soak up the rays that aren’t easy to come by during a summer in Southeast Alaska.  The path there was a little to the left.

God had called me here.  There haven’t been many times in my life when I could say that with confidence, but I knew it to be true now.  But as the weeks progressed, I watched my expectations crumble before my eyes.  I was a seasoned professional at this.  If any experience should have hammered that truth into my brain, it would have been the Race.  But I thought these were more realistic.  Instead, loneliness seeped in when quality time and vulnerability were scarce.  Feelings of failure abounded when my attempts to fulfill my role fell short. Uncertainty, anxiety, and depression crept up on me as I considered the possibilities and unknowns of my future again… and again… and again.  And, to top it all off, nobody liked feedback. 

I spent the summer being everywhere but here, and I knew it.  I felt like I had already thrown away opportunities to make the most of it, and nothing had even come out of all my fretting about what to do next.  I tossed, turned, and lay in a miserable heap of pity party in my bed one afternoon during the final few weeks, mulling it all over.  I listened to Jesus music and asked Him what heck I was supposed to do next.

And then I saw myself, scrambling around and trying to devise all these plans for what I would do.  But I wasn’t scrambling on the ground.  I was in the palm of a very large hand, and I didn’t even realize it.  I ran from one side of the palm to another, never noticing the fruitlessness of my efforts to do what I thought was best.  Because the hand was attached to Someone.  A wrist, to an arm, to a chest, to a neck to the head… of my Father.  My Father who was watching me run to and fro and sort of smiling knowingly.  As I looked in at myself, my scrambly little body, I thought, “If I were God, I would think that was so ridiculous. Why wouldn't I just trust Him, that He sees everything, and He's holding me, and He's in control? Why wouldn't I just rest, secure in His hand?"

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I turned right.  Why, I really didn’t know, but I didn’t really think about it.  Until I saw it and remembered.  The tiny little camp house referred to as the Love Shack. 

I had frequented this little home during my previous summer here because that is where my “camp mom”, Lyn, had lived.  We had talked together of things that mattered as she mixed together our favorite lemon drink concoction.  She told me her story.  And I marveled at how a woman so formerly broken could now be so full of love, grace, and joy.  

  

So often, my spirit’s response to a gentle Truth that sets it reeling is a simple, “Oh.”

I felt awakened.  Affirmed.  But not yet satisfied.  I knew there was more to trusting Him than just knowing I should do it.  It had to do with knowing Him.  Loving Him.  But what did that really mean, truly loving God with all my heart and soul and mind and strength?  I had seen others live that way.  I had been reading about it recently in one of the many books hailed by my World Race leaders.  I knew God was trustworthy, and I knew I loved Him.  But did I love Him like that?

          

I smiled as I walked up the porch steps and opened the door.  After making sure it was actually vacant, I settled into the couch where Lyn had shared her life with me four years ago.  Glancing around me, I noticed a book on the side table.  The Art of Loving God.  

I read the whole thing.  I cried.  I thanked.  I prayed.

I released.

I'm still processing through these kinds of things.  Intimacy.  Trust.  Love.  But in those still, sweet moments, I knew my Father was reaching down to me -- for me -- and saying, "Here, let Me help you understand a little better."  Maybe the point isn't me knowing all the things or being enough or getting it right or, you know, in control.  Just give. it. up.   (And haven't I already written like 56 blogs about this?)

What about you?  What kinds of things has God helped you understand in the midst of your own Crazy Land?

So It Begins

After the dreary wind and drizzle of the first several days here in Auke Bay, Alaska, it has become unseasonably gorgeous outside.  Right now, I’m sitting in our dining hall in front of the windows that overlook the front beach of Berners Bay.  Breathtaking, snow-capped mountains tower out of the water.  Most of the counselors, having arrived a few days to a few hours ago, are hanging out on the beach, enjoying the sunshine and each other.  Thank God.  I was worried they were never going to say any words on their own.


I’ve been in Alaska for 12 days now, but it somehow feels as if it’s already been a month or more.  Although things have normalized at this point, they got off to sort of an eh start.  Coming back to Echo Ranch after 4 years feels kind of like visiting a house I used to live in.  This place is familiar – sort of – but these people aren’t.  The day after I arrived, I jumped right into the work staff groove, helping out with kitchen prep and cleanup (basically, cutting veggies, making dessert, and washing dishes 230981 times).

The first night I arrived, I was just in a funk.  I took a long walk (with my 3^rd cup of hot tea of the day in hand) around the camp, just exploring, remembering where everything was, talking to Jesus, recounting all the woes.  It was weird and lonely.  And cold.  And I just kept thinking, What the heck am I doing here?  

It wasn’t weird coming out the first time, at that phase in my life.  I was a college student and could just up and leave for the summer, no problem.  I wasn’t really concerned about my family, and I didn’t have a pending relationship back home or at school.  I wasn’t “soul tied”.  Things are so different now.  My relationships with family members have deepened, and I find myself worrying more about how things are going back home.  I think about my potential plans for the fall, feeling uncertain of what the best thing is (and we all know how I do with decision making).

I sat at the top of the zipline platform and whined and sat in all my uncertainty and my junk.  I thought about my World Race training camp, now 19 months ago, when God told Allison Johnston to honor all that we had left to come there.  I didn’t resonate with that then, but I do now.  I thought of Jesus’ disciples, who immediately abandoned everything they were doing and followed Him.  And that made me feel a little better.  I guess I had just thought that abandoning everything physically meant I could abandon it mentally/emotionally as well, and that hasn’t been the case at all.  And then of course I know I’m supposed to just trust Jesus and stop freaking out (the usual), but I don’t really know what that looks like.

I still felt kind of blah after all that, but then I kept going on my walk and saw all my special buildings, like the chapel where I had puppeteered and worshiped Jesus a zillion times, and the house where my “camp mom” lived and made me tea and told me her super crazy and detailed life story and listened to my woes, and the camp store where I would soon purchase some comfy sweatpants.  I went inside a cabin and smelled that signature firewood/stove aroma, and I was immediately transported back to the days of living with campers and attempting to get that dang fire to stay lit.  It was glorious.  And I felt refreshed.

The next couple of days were just a process of my initial social ineptness transforming to mostly social eptness.  I’ve gotten used to this “warming up” process by now and have been cutting myself a lot more slack, as far as not thinking I’m an idiot and stuff.  I started to feel like I was settling in, finding my place.

Counselors started arriving early the following week.  In spite of initial fears of counselor advising failure, I’ve been amazed at the ways I’ve been able to connect with these girls.  Many of their demeanors and life experiences are very similar to mine, both in the past and the present, and God has blessed me with so many opportunities to share some of the vast depths of my wisdom with them.  Ha.  Seriously, though, I hear their stories and think, time and time again, Yep.  I know what you’re saying.  And I’m right there with you now, or I’ve been there before.  And I’m pretty sure it’s going to be okay, because God has a knack for working stuff out.  I’m seeing the evidence of our God, who hand picked all of us out of each of our normal lives and brought us to this place, with all our baggage and failures and quirks and fears.  And, slowly but surely, I am seeing Him make us one body.

He is so good.  And, at least for now, I know I am right where I am supposed to be.

This post is adapted from an e-mail update I send out to friends and family who are interested in my missions experiences.  If you would like to be added to that list, just e-mail me at reagan.taylor88@gmail.com to let me know.