Boughten Me

Free.

It seems to change with each season that passes and oh, I feel it past and present.

Way back when I was young being free meant running barefoot across soft grasses, picking walnuts from budding trees and honeysuckles from bushes, swinging for what seemed like hours hopes set high on those blue skies, running and getting dirty and not caring.

That was my free. And I never once knew they were there.

My parents.

They were but I can't remember them in that moment, because freedom is really felt inside, no matter what happenings are going on outside.






In the quiet hushes of the deepest part inside, free is felt.

I grew older away from that young girl and free meant out and spread wings and now almost forty and married and two children and freedom I find becomes forgotten.

When I hear free now it becomes distorted by the words of a fleshly world starving for instant gratification and selfish ambition and satisfaction.

When I hear free now and I blot it all out all the whining from the world, I hear "bought."

We are our bought with a price. The sweetest price, life. 

Not just our souls, but are bodies as Holy Temples are set aside for His Holiness to pave paths of light and love to all, even our enemies.

We carry the greatest freedom.

We are free from the chains of pasts.
We are free from the heavy yokes of anxiety, fear, and everything that threatens to snuff out our lights.
We are free from death.

In the quiet hushes of the deepest part inside, free is felt, and it is Him.

"For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." 1Corinthians 6:20


(Oh and yes I guess boughten is a word and the carpenter is wrong on that one!)

**This is a Five Minute Friday Post #fmfparty. A wonderful, community of amazing women who pen five minutes of thoughts every Friday.**

Always Hope

Hope. 

The word that gives life its wings.

Hope.

So we don't lose heart.

They can try and take it all away from us, but what sets us apart is a soul that can wake morning after morning and can walk step after step and know that He offers us his hands and side and He whispers, "I am the Rose of Sharon, the Beginning and The End, I am Yahweh, The Comforter and Healer."







He is our hope.

And that's why we can face the world and peel back the layers brave that threaten to conceal us and share hearts and His words. 

We stand tall and He stands beside us all the way.

Walk and run with His hope.

Hope.

The word that gives life its wings.

First time writing the five minute challenge from Kate Motaung at Five Minute Fridays!


How To See Spacious Skies

I see her off to the side of the busy four lane highway.

With my hands on the wheel, tires pushing limits and the kids in the back acting silly and loud, I stole a look.

I see her as she pounds the wooden cross into the grassy mounds and wraps a ribbon over the top aware yet uncaring of how close she is to the oncoming traffic.

Maybe that's what it feels like when you lose someone dear. 

When the time comes you know there is no real stopping it.

My heart sunk for her as she grieved for the heart she lost maybe a child, a spouse, a friend, a family member.











       
 I remember looking at his wrinkled face as he sat with his overalls and rolled up socks and showed me his bent pictures of black and white and of how much he talked of times ago.

Those times are running out. 

The talks of battles from victors and stories from soldiers are fading, but I watched as his face still held light over something so dark, because in the end he would do it all over again.

The fight for the flag to stand, the fight of the plight of unwavering free plains, the fight for the children to run free over holy grounds. 

In the end, millions sacrificed over decades for that free, holy ground where we walk.

And how we are just here on this good earth is a miracle.

When the anthem plays and hands fold over hearts a chill escapes the bones and we silence it all except for her song.

There we are hundreds upon thousands upon millions all under the same blanketed sky and maybe for that brief moment those who don't usually feel it do. 

That undeniable bond that ties man to country and country to man and man to God.

We all feel it at some time, that wave of Spirit across spacious skies. It is Him.

Grateful that we have a home and country fought for, but at a cost that ran red for our feet to run free. 

The greatest gifts sacrificed for our everything.

And when that song soars through the skies maybe we forget ourselves as I and think of it all as we and how years ago men who knew nothing of today's woes and ways, new the greatest thing.

That what binds us together is image and unity and that is the thread that ties the knot of our hearts together.

No matter the pasts, the burdens, the choices, the lifestyles, in the end when it's stripped and laid raw and bare we are all made in His image.

The image of the Creator who endows us those rights. 

The image of God who yearns for His people to come together towards him to win the wars of the flesh and foe.

He knows us. 

He knows how we can be our happiest, best selves.

He knows our hurts and choices and He silently whispers, "Come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest."

The thing we all want to see in the end are those spacious skies. Yet we can't come as we are, but only as He has made us, in His image.


"So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them,
male and female he created them."
                                Genesis 1:27