Free in 2017

It's been a few years since I made any resolutions as many people do.  New Year's Day is a time to refresh, to start over, to move forward from the year past and look forward to what is to come.    Granted, this is something we should be doing daily anyway, but New Year's Day is a day that most everyone seems to set aside for big changes and resolutions.

Generally speaking, when I decide it's time for a change, my resolution starts that day.  Some things I've decided to work on are my excessive sarcasm, personal time and bible time with God, playing on the floor with my children, reading more, speaking words of life instead of words of death, and getting back in the grind with my health.  I'm hoping that soon, I'll have more energy and less fatigue because I'll be better about getting more iron on a regular basis, and I will get back to where I was with working out, because I love and miss it.

Those things were all decided upon in 2016, so they're not really New Year's things.

Today, though, I chose a word.

Free.

One of my best friends has chosen a word of the year for a few years now, and she's shared it publicly.  Each time, I have admired her for doing so, and thought it was inspirational. I've seen others join alongside her, choosing words, themes, mottos, and Bible verses that they plan to live their life in accordance to for the course of the new year.  

Up until today, I really haven't had the urge to join. It just hasn't felt right.  I've never been able to choose a word that seemed to make sense.

In church this morning, I was singing in worship, to the song "No Longer Slaves."  It is a song that has been powerful and resonated with me each time we have sang it, to the point where I've written it out for myself at home more than once, downloaded it on my phone, and sang it throughout the apartment multiple times.  But this morning, it hit me harder, and made even more sense to me.  Instead of the just relating and finding the opening verse beautiful and applicable for me personally and how God often talks to me through song, the chorus struck me.

"I'm no longer a slave to fear.  I am a child of God."  The bridge proclaims, "You split the sea so I could walk right through it.  My fears were drown in perfect love.  You rescued me so I could stand and sing 'I am a child of God.'"

Slavery.  Fear.  

Last year, as the years before, had it's share of rough patches and emotional rollercoasters, dark valleys, high peaks, and personal discovery.  My marriage was legally dissolved, and I wrestled for months with that realization.  In the fall, I took the Cleansing Stream course at church, and found bondages breaking left and right, freeing me mentally and emotionally from countless years of baggage, chains, and scars.  

I found myself evolving into the strongest woman that I have ever been, I think, emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually.  I've lived another year out in faith, anchored by hope, trying to trust, trying not to worry, trying not to fear.  

This morning, our pastor was talking about New Year's changes, much as I have already written about.   As he was talking, I heard the still, small voice saying, "Nicole, you're free. You're free. YOU ARE FREE."

I've known it.  I've known it for a long time, years, months, weeks, days.  I've known in theory, and I've felt it increasingly over the past couple months since walking through the Stream.   But this morning, I really felt it.  And I knew that this year, I had a word.

Free.

God has freed me from my bondages.  He has won every battle (for me, for my children, for my family, for my friends, for everyone, really).  He bought it by his blood. I've known it all along.  But today, I could see it.  I could see that I am not who I was last year in yet another way. As our pastor was talking about looking back and how we can't dwell in the past, but have to move forward, I realized that the past woman was worried and feared things that I had no control over quite frequently- more frequently than I realized at the time.

This year, I can see there are big things ahead.  I closed out the last year by opening up doors I never imagined would be in front of me already, if ever, and I took a leap of faith in doing so.  I prayed fervently, thought deeply, and trusted in God that no matter what decision I was making in that hallway, He would be alongside me and He had it all under control for me and my children, no matter what.  I chose to believe in life over death, and in doing so, I chose not to fear and not to worry.

I stood there in church this morning, seeing how, as many times in the past, I could be sitting here, worrying away the minutes, afraid that things could and would fall apart, placing my trust in and investing solely on the will of man instead of the sovereignty and protection of God.

Instead, I realized I'm free. I have finally accepted my freedom.

My word- free.

My word and my goal are perfectly stated in the verse I've chosen for my year.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."  Galatians 5:1

My personal spiritual, mental, and emotional challenge for this year, summed up by the word "free" is to fall back on God, to stand firm in my salvation, firm in my faith, and to not let the enemy entice me back into my bondage.  I need to keep my eyes forward, walking in my freedom.

I am free.

Through the doors

Ah, New Year's Eve is upon us again. It's almost always met by the majority of the population with a feeling of nostalgia, and we sit around, alone or with others, reminiscing about the last 365 days and other years prior.

Tonight, I sit with my two sons, daughter already in bed, at the end of a long, exhausting day, hoping that they will sleep soon too, and I won't be awake to see midnight.

But, I am reminiscing, as I am sure others are as well.

This past year has, undoubtedly, been the hardest year of my life. I've seen over 30 turns of the calendar come and go, and in each, there have been hard times and simple times. This year, I cashed in on countless hard times. 

Now, writing that likely seems like a plea for sympathy or pity, but it is not. While the year 2015 brought immeasurable loss and sorrow, it brought countless blessings and indescribable joys.

Last weekend, the sermon in church was focused on shutting doors and moving forward through the hallway into the next doorway. It resonated with me on so many levels that I cried multiple times throughout the service, tears of grief and tears of healing.

As the calendar changes tonight, we close the door on the year we lived through. As we do, I find myself in a dim hallway as I wait out the changes that are coming my way. It's not an easy wait and I am often finding apprehension and anxiety as I brace for the unknown. But, I have found peace, most days, in the hallway. I see the door ahead, and I know I will get there, even if it feels like an eternity I must wait.

The trials my children and I went through this past year still catch me in uncontrollable sobs from time to time, late at night, as the pillow beside me is empty and I feel absolutely alone, but it's becoming less frequent.

And that's because amidst the heart shattering we endured, greatness has come.  I have found my God is closer to me than I had ever found before. He has carried me through.  

This year, while it could have been defined as horrible, is actually, in some ways, quite great. I have found strength in myself. I have been blessed with deep, true friendships. I have had my pride shattered and been brought to the floor in humility. I have experienced grace. I have seen determination in myself in ways I did not know existed. When I could have given up, I pressed onward.

I have seen this year take my biggest fear and forced me to live through the nightmare, but I have seen love I did not realize existed outside the love I thought I could not live without.

As I close the door on the year and reflect on this loss, I realize it is a gain, in many ways. Because while I longed to hold onto and restore what I had for fear of what would come if I no longer had it, my marriage and the "security" that it provided, I can see so clearly now that it was not what I deserved, and there really was no security in it for myself or my children on many levels. While I clutched to it so terribly, we suffered greatly through the fight.

So, I think, I am ready. I think I'm ready to slam that door and seal it. I am ready for the new one, terrifying as it may be to open. Because now that I'm so far through it, I have more clarity than I have had in years.

Sometimes, it really does take hell-fire to purify your life. It sucks. It sucks bad. But, perhaps it is truly worth it after all.

I pray that I continue walking forward with the clarity and strength I find in myself to confess these things tonight. I know I will need God, and I will need my friends and family that have stayed beside me through this all. But, I will make it through. It's not the end, it's the beginning.

Isaiah 43 NLT

18 “But forget all that—
    it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.
19 For I am about to do something new.
    See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
    I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.