Choose this day... freedom or bondage

I am writing this blog from a place I've never been before. I am in a dorm room. No I'm not getting a child into college for summer school. I'm not visiting one of my children on a college campus either. I'm living in the dorm.

Now before you worry that I escaped South Dakota or left my husband, rumors can spread so fast. Let me explain. I am here because I have begun a doctoral program. In three years, with God's help, grace and a lot of hard work, I will be Dr. Joyce A. Lighari. I've even been thinking about changing my name for professional purposes. When I write my book I may want to change not only the names of some of those who are in the book but my own.

It's a strange experience. It's sort of like camp without the pool and free time. No late night campfires where we toast marshmallows and all come to Jesus either. I am in a rather stark dorm room all by myself. I share a bathroom with some one else. Other than that, it's just me. Breakfast at 7 a.m. - short breaks for lunch and supper between classes that start at 8 a.m. and end at 9, 10, or somethings 11 p.m.

So what does this have to do with freedom? Actually it has a lot to do with freedom. I'm not talking about that feeling of freedom that a college student has when they first leave home. I am taking about a freedom to pursue the calling of God on my life.

God has been doing a lot of rearranging in me. I feel a bit like Moses. God sent me to the backside of the desert (South Dakota). Now in my old age, I'm back in school. I'm back in a dorm. I'm being further changed and rearranged so that I can walk in a freedom I've never know before.

As part of this process, we've been reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Okay, I know, you must have read it. Just like you, I read it in the 90's too. It sounded good. Doesn't conflict with Biblical principles - doesn't particularly emphasize them as such either... Unfortunately, life got chaotic again for me right after I read it - the bottom of everything fell out. When I picked it up this time, I realized the only thing I clearly remembered was that picture of the woman.

Perhaps because of the all the calamities, chaos and such of my life, I was finally really ready to read this book. You know God uses everything, including Stephen Covey's 7 habits. I'd heard it before but when I read, between stimulus and response there is choice, I think I had an epiphany. Every since then, ever since it got deep down in my spirit, I realized I was free to chose.

Obviously the most important thing in life we ever chose is our response to God. That brings the greatest freedom. However, if we don't exercise our now re-born freewill to chose for ourselves how we are going to react, we are never free. We never know freedom. We destructively follow false Gods and false patterns. We never know the wonderful person God made us to be; we never let Him finish His work in us. We just react to everything. Crisis hits, and we react - we could respond by listening to the voice of God who will tell us what our response should be.

I feel more free than I have in a long time. This Independence Day, I am celebrating my independence from the dictates of other people, their attitudes, their opinions, their judgments and my own false beliefs. I may be too old to live in a dorm, but here I am. I'm older than almost anyone, but I'm here. I had the freedom to chose to live my life for God's glory and service.

We've been asked to write our personal mission statement. I didn't want to... still don't. But as I've thought about it, I discovered that I desire more than anything to have a legacy of faithfulness so that I may hear some day, Well done, good and faithful servant.