Freedom is Fleeting

I used to think when my children grew up I'd be free. Free from care, worry, strife, getting up at 2 am clutching my prayers to my throat. 

The world told me I'd be free. Why I believed the world, I'll never know. 🤷‍♀️ The world is not my guide. It's leadership is fleeting, its wisdom false.

Oh, I knew there would be elderly parents to tend to, calls to make, bumps in the road, grandbabies to hug and read to, grown kids to rescue. But freedom was my agenda. Not from my children and family but from strife and bumps and midnight phone calls and whatever else threatened my peace of mind and soul. 

It was fine. It would be fine. Afterall, the world had told me I would be in control of my fine.

Then the parents grew old and the spouses and grandchildren came quickly and largely. And it wasn't fine. It was just more than I could handle. So much more. And I realized something that blew the world's illusion to smithereens. 

We aren't in control. Certainly not of our lives. Definitely not of our children's...despite the fact their decisions and choices cost us dearly in our beliefs, finances, lifestyle, comfort, and peace of mind. 

Yet God tells us that in order to come to Him we must release ourselves of this world:

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

— Matthew 10:35-39

That's mind boggling. 

Still, this does not mean to abandon those around us. The Bible might seem to contradict itself but its message is truly one of prudence. Let us not forget Christ lived in family for 30 of his 33 years of life. And his mother remained with him the entire time, straight to the foot of the cross. We are not to cut family from our lives but to *take care* of those God places in our life...with a measure of prudency.

God first. Then others. We show our love for God in caring for others around us but never to the extent that we place them ahead of our love for Him.

To *take care* of others is not the same as being manipulated or even expected to give the help we give that cost us so dearly. To discover our limitations and search our capacity of body and mind is to follow Christ who truly wants what is best for us and cautions us to be prudent. (Boundaries 101, anyone?)

To separate ourselves from our children is to slice through our belief in who we thought we were and who they made us believe we were. The cutting is deep and harsh, sometimes brutal, but, if we see it as God releasing us from our own expectations and weaknesses and that of our children's, we are brought closer to desiring the life Christ wants us to lead and not the life others expect and insist we live for them. We are here to live for Christ. Another's expectations of what we should do for them is of their own making and that is where prudence enters in.

 

In the meantime we have much work to do and we are to *take care*. 

We are to *take care* of our families and the people God places before us. In that way we leave behind a charcuterie board of life beyond boundaries and expectations. We are left with a rich feast of experience that guides us to God without burden or strife.