I Found Freedom

free·dom

/ˈfrēdəm/

noun

1. the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

I’ve struggled, I’ve struggled, I’ve struggled with letting others determine how I feel. How I think. How I should behave. How I should live. How I should love. And every time I listened to others over my heart, I miserably settled. 

It’s suffocating and draining to live your life for others. But it’s my belief we’ve all at some point done it. 

If I could give the year 2018 a name, or rather a title for me, it would be discovery. I discovered so much about life. About love. About God. About myself. About my own beliefs. About my values and about things I didn’t value after all. 

My most favorite discovery I discovered in 2018 was that God was love and God was light. It sounds so simple and rather “Duh.” But for me it led me to discovering my own personal freedom and divine happiness. It’s a happiness and freedom I found in 2018 that I never had or allowed myself to have. Simply saying out loud that God is love and God is light was like a switch in my mind. For so long I was in captivity with the ideology that I needed to be holy and uptight in order to attain favor, grace, approval, blessings, wealth, love and all the other things I desired. I thought I needed to be a “certain Christian” in order to be true and Christ like. And I was constantly confused and drained. I wasn’t happy. I was beating myself up anytime I did “wrong”. I worried what will he/she would think of me now since I acted this way? Do I even deserve to talk about Jesus the way I fail and sin sometimes? And then I’d make myself feel better by praying and seeking to do better and be better. (Which isn’t wrong to do) but I was failing to extend myself grace and grasp the bigger picture that God is simply love. I focused too much on trying to be a good Christian rather than a good person. 

I remember one day praying to God and it was the most genuine and emotional prayer I’d ever felt. I felt free to talk to God and pour out my heart. I don’t know exactly what it was about that prayer specifically but it changed my perspective on life that day and freed me from captivity. From that day forward, I stopped focusing on being a godly woman. My motto became: “Just be love and light.” I told myself it is enough simply aiming to be love and light. In the past, I was too dwelled on my downfalls. If I cussed, I dwelled on it. I cared about what people thought of me for cussing and so on. 

Now, I realize that if people just aim to be love and light that is the biggest reflection of God. Your sincereness and love for God glows when you simply give love. I searched my own heart. I knew that deep within, my good heart outweighed my downfalls. The way I extend a helping hand to those in need, the way I show gratitude and love to the ones that help me, the way I forgive, the way I show forgiveness to even the ones that aren’t sorry, the way I try my best to smile, the way I apologize when I’m wrong, the way I swallow my pride, these were all things God whispered in my ear about myself and revealed to me He is pleased with. And that, that is enough. God is not concerned with who knows the most bible scriptures if their heart really isn’t pure. What good is it to know scriptures but don’t treat people kindly? What good is it to pray but don’t treat people nicely? What good is it to go to church faithfully but withhold love and help on to others? 

I know people that have enough love and sincerity in their hearts that don’t  always attend church. Then I know people who faithfully attend church and bible study that have more wrath and a hardened spirit within their heart. Which person do you think God is more pleased with? The one that goes to church faithfully but has a malicious spirit, or the one that doesn’t regularly attend church but has a heart of love and gives others love? 

It’s not the one that does religious customs. It’s the one that lives out pure loving customs. 

So I gave my heavy chains of rules, regulations, and what people thought to God and exchanged it for aiming to just be love and light. 

It was freeing because even though I have days where I know I’m not always love and light, I know my heart is set on love. When you chose love and light naturally you become conscious when something you’re doing doesn’t feel right or feel of love or light.  

Please be aware I still love church, still attend church, still pray— but I’m aware that’s not what solely matters. Your heart, your actions, how you treat others is everything. 

Happy 2019 friends, I love you all. Thank you for reading. Be love, be light. 

-Padriana Grace 

JesusChristChangedMyLife because His love makes me be love. 

“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.”

(1 John 4:8 and 4:16)