Born to be Free

So here I am, back from a three week sabbatical.  I have needed a reset for awhile, some time to think and sort things out, get some fresh ideas into my brain, and give voice to more ponderings. :) ~ Most days you know what you're going to get.  Life seems pretty predictable and there's a rhythm, even if the rhythm means three people in the family working, six kids being schooled and a whole lot of people needing you to help them live their lives. Then you have one of  those  days.  One of the days when you've got a friend or a relative in the hospital; when a tire goes out on an old van and you're stuck; when you've got a friend who calls and talks for hours because they feel lost; or one of the days when you're on the other side of that phone. I knew a woman once who was so glued to her schedule that if anything went wrong, her whole week was ruined.  Whatever she had planned to do that day was no longer going to get done.  Her life was prett...

So, everybody around you?  They need somebody.  Maybe you could be that somebody? No one is impenetrable, there's a bit of broken inside each one of us - and our fears can roar like lions at night when the Devil tells us that we're just not enough. No matter our fronts, really - we're all afraid, sinking with every step. Nothing quite kills you like feeling alone - like you've got to do it all on your own. But there's this God - this Jesus Who "became a man to enable men to become sons of God". (C. S. Lewis) There's this God Who became embodied flesh, Who faced temptations at every moment - and conquered ours.  "For we do not have a priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15) He not only healed the sick, but raised the  dead .  Every time we read it, we proclaim it - that "He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all...