Through the Storm, You Set Me Free--June 29, 2013

                The title of this post comes from the song “You Set Me Free” by Angie Miller. As I  listened to this song, this lyric jumped out at me.  It is THROUGH, not in spite of, the storms of life that we are set free. When life is a tornado of hurt, loss, confusion, slammed doors, and pretension and false securities are stripped away. We are forced to admit where our hope and hearts lie and in this process we are set free from the things we cling to that cannot provide the security we seek.

Storms also reveal our stubborn pride, our desire to be autonomous and self-sufficient but yet proving so is only valuable when others see it—so paradoxical. Yet, meaning and joy is found in community—especially in floods, earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, and other tragedies; when community bursts forth to provide for others. The storms of life set us free from the self-sufficiency that suffocates relationship and feeds pride.

Personally, the last several months of storms have set me free from the fears of expectation and failure. I have been so afraid that I’m “not where I should be” (not married, not living on my own, not back out on the missions field) not, not, not. Focusing on my “have-nots” is so crippling. I am easily crushed between the pride that tells me I should be somewhere different and the consequent feelings of inadequacy that no one but my internal thoughts are telling me. The storm of sorting out culture shock and the shortness of life forces me to feel like I need to be “doing something important” right now, immediately, and if not than I’m wasting life. But it is when I rest in the unrest that a transition season brings that I am free to learn from and in the storm instead of just fighting it.

I am grateful that it is IN the storm, not simply after the fact, that I have been set free by Jesus. He tells me I am loved, I am enough and I matter simply because I am his. I don’t have to strive to “be all I can be” because it doesn’t change my worth. I am loved the same on a lazy Saturday and a productive “finished to-do-list” Tuesday. I am set free.