Free: Five Minute Friday

Another week, another chance to write on a one-word prompt for only five minutes. We set timers, type quickly, and let it flow without criticism. Then, we link-up our posts so we can read others' posts and they read ours and we have a community that grows from one word each week.
Five Minute Friday.

Go!

If you have never been caged, you would never know what it meant to be free. This post could easily be dark and heavy or light and fluffy, but I'm hoping to balance somewhere in the middle.

One thing I have been honored to do for almost twenty years now, is sing our National Anthem at sporting events. I began as a high school sophomore, then expanded to college basketball games. In that song, you may have a rough start, but nobody will remember much of your performance except for "O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave."

Go too high at your beginning, and you'll be screeching the word free. Start too low, and you'll wish you weren't singing at all.

We as Christians have freedom that many others long for. We are hesistant, at times, to freely share that hope.
"Freely, freely you have received, freely, freely give..." (My grandparents were Southern Baptist Missionaries, so I've got a wealth of hymnals in my head.)

Rather than hide our joy, we should be brilliantly shining. We don't abuse our freedom. We are considerate of the weaknesses of those around us. If I'm not gluten-resistant but my friend is, I'll try to make a dessert we can both enjoy. It is when we lose our freedom that we appreciate what we had.

I don't want to regret what I could have had, but instead to live as if today was the day Jesus was coming back to set the captives free. And the singing when He returns? Then we will really be in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

 

This is a song I wrote two years ago at our Women's Retreat called "I set you free".
It was meant as a past tense as well as a directive.

~Tammy