?Ironic?

I wish I was better at keeping up with this blog...it would probably be much more interesting that way :) By this point I would say that grieving is something I am more willing to do, but it has yet to become something I want to do or look forward to. Although enjoyable is not the first word that comes to mind when I think about grief, I'm still holding onto this idea that as I keep grieving joy will eventually emerge. What does that joy look like? Not a clue, but I'll let you know when I find out!

For me grieving has meant more in-depth time with "the vault" :( This part has definitely royally sucked! Who wants to sit and remember the broken fragments of their past? If you are someone who enjoys this, I would love to hear your story, and how you embrace that process so willingly! Because I most definitely dislike this aspect of grief - the remembering. The remembering is unpleasant and usually ends up with me in tears. However, the tears are new, these are tears of grief, not shame. Did you know there can be a difference? Well at least for me they are. The only tears I ever cried were tears of shame, but as freedom from the vault becomes more and more realistic, the tears come in the grief, but also in things that move the "starting to emerge emotional pieces of me." Apparently I have those too - emotions that is!

In speaking of grief, I don't think we can leave out emotions. For such a long time, I didn't have access to mine. They lived behind the dark and dreary bars of the vault, never wanting to be released into freedom. Most prisoners desire freedom with every ounce of their being, but I'm learning that although the idea of freedom is alluring many prisoners aren't ready or as motivated towards freedom as much as they thought. People want freedom, and for some of us we look at in terms of entitlement - I should be free. Although I agree, we should be free, Jesus came to bring us freedom, I also disagree with the idea of entitlement-based freedom. When I think about the freedom from slavery, or the freedom from the Revolutionary war, freedom from the Holocaust, or even our freedom in Christ, I am reminded that none of these freedoms came without a price. And the price involved death, struggle, and hard-work...

Day after day I see clients who want freedom with out the work...Day after day I demand and want freedom without the work! Wouldn't it be so nice if we could just receive the freedom without having to actually work for it?!?! But it's not possible, even Jesus worked to bring us freedom! Although we have access to Jesus' freedom free of charge, we also are in this process of sanctification, which praise God we have the Holy Spirit because otherwise we'd never get there, it's hard work, even with the power of the Holy Spirit, sanctification is difficult, uncomfortable, and sometimes even painful. No one usually begs to be inside of a crucible, they usually beg to be taken out of the crucible...but as we're screaming for someone to save us from the fire of the crucible we're also demanding freedom - ironic?