Each morning I touch screen my way to the Internet, my soul weighs heavy. Click-worthy news articles stand tightly beside one another, screaming to be heard and validated by at-home internet audiences.
I scroll across the Jolie-Pitt divorce ragings, the Presidential debate slayings, the racial tug-of-war. Fear-motivated articles assure me I am not safe anywhere – not in my country, certainly not my state, city, or home.
As I pray about hopelessness and greed and death, the Lord is gracious to remind me of the freedom He died to give me. So that I might live.
Some days living means barely having the strength to push yourself up out of the sleep-laden mattress and choosing to turn down your feet to feel the shock and hard of the cold floor, only to muster one step at a time.
And some days, living looks like soft sun rays piercing stretched out grey-white clouds on the pallet of a pale blue sky – calm and rejuvenating and fresh.
Most days, though, living looks like something that hangs in the span of in between. It is in the mundane in between, we need to remember the freedom He insisted on at the cross and that He has been offering every day, ever since.
As a mother, I feel compelled to hold onto this freedom and exercise it like a muscle so that I don’t forget how it was meant to bless. That it is a gift. In choosing to remember my freedom in Christ, I choose to dream. I choose to release my thoughts from the locked up coop called “survival” and think old dreams and still wish they might come true.
Today, I get to share a popular and piercing poem by Langston Hughes. Thank you, Mr. Hughes, for reminding all of us that part of living is dreaming. And that God gave us dreams so that we might experience freedom and fly somewhere, even if it is only in our minds.
DREAMS
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
–Langston Hughes
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