America: land of the free. Our nation was built on freedom. It was built on the idea that each person should be able to live their lives how they choose regardless of their past, but how often do we acknowledge what that actually means? In the same way the freedom we have received through Christ is not something that we always acknowledge to the extent that we should. He died on the cross so that we can receive complete freedom through him. We are able to walk in a freedom unlike any other. We don’t need to fear what lies ahead due to our current circumstances or past experiences because of what Christ did on the cross. But yet this isn’t something that we always realize just what that actually means.
This week we were given the opportunity to accompany Nuevo Generación on their staff retreat for two days at Lake Atitlan. This retreat, though short, was full of new freedoms for so many of us there. On our first night there, my team and I were asked if we would lead a little worship session because the night before at our house those leading this retreat overheard our team doing worship together in our room. We came prepared with a few songs to sing, some in Spanish and some in English, and we figured that this would be all we would do for the night because none of us are really gifted in the area of music and leading worship. However, little did we know that our host’s wife (who is absolutely amazing and so in tune with the Holy Spirit) would step in requesting us to continue worshiping because she felt the Holy Spirit had so much more for us that night, and boy she was right. That night began as a simple little worship session with an iPhone and a speaker, but turned into a night where the Holy Spirit had completely taken over and we had the opportunity to experience freedom in ways we didn’t know was possible.
This night at the lake is an experience that is so hard to put into words. No matter what I would say about what happened and what we experienced during these few hours of being together in this simple little meeting room at an average hotel would not do it justice. Simply put, it was a night filled with prayer, intense spirit led prayer. Prayer that allowed the Holy Spirit to meet us each in a different place where we desperately needed him so that we could experience an incredible freedom that seemed so distant and unreachable.
For me, this whole experience was overwhelming. It was incredible and frightening all at the same time. I wasn’t sure how to react to what was going on around me. I didn’t know what to feel, and that was my problem. That is where the Holy Spirit met me. For so long I’ve hidden my emotions and kept them to myself for various reasons, and so at that point it was almost as if I didn’t have them anymore. But that night, the barriers were broken. My heart was once again softened to the emotions that were building up inside of me and as a consequence of that, for the first time in years I allowed myself to cry in front of people. For the first time in years I can identify the last time I cried, which may not seem like a big deal, but after years of never allowing myself to invite others into my life and show what is going on inside my head it was a huge step.
This one night finally allowed me to experience new freedom in the way I pursue community with others. I now know that I have the ability to be vulnerable with those around me and it is okay. It is okay to not be okay all of the time. It is okay to need others to walk along beside you lifting you up and supporting you. It is okay to not have it all together. It is okay to have emotions. And it is okay to express those emotions. Now I can’t say I’m an expert at this. I can’t say I am all of the sudden able to open up about every emotion running through my mind at the snap of a finger due to this one night. But I can say that I now have the ability to move forward with this knowledge and begin putting this into practice. I can now say that I know what this new freedom regarding my emotions means. I know just how amazing community is and that what it has to offer is something far greater than anything I could experience on my own. Christ has given me this new freedom, he paid the ultimate price just so that I could experience this tiny bit of freedom in my everyday life and I am so grateful for the ability to now walk in this freedom.
