sunflowery's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hug a Vet(eran)...Happy Memorial Day 7 days out from WLS and only 17 more days until I can start eating food again. When will the weather here get sunny again? It taunts us and teases us by coming out in the morning, but by early afternoon, there's the rain again. Blech! Last night I dreamt that someone gave me a gift of hamburgers from Burger King and White Castle and I wanted to freeze it all and save it until I could actually eat it. Then someone else told me that it wouldn't keep and I should just give it all away to the people near by. I actually cried because I hurt so bad! People, I have never had a white castle burger in my life. Weird, huh? Today I took my first excursion out into the real world. I had to run to Target to get envelopes and thank you notes. There are a lot of people to thank when you are out for surgery. It went OK, though I was a bit tired when I got back. I also got all our thank you notes written and started on another project I had put off until I was home from surgery. Yesterday I craved Chili and today I've been craving tomoato soup and grilled cheese. I talked to my Grandma today and we had a nice chat. She's so cute. She was going to watch the Twins game, but first she was watching her "story". She couldn't watch the game until her soap was over...hee! I also had a good talk with my mom. We chatted for a long time which is odd because she's not much of a phone talker. It was nice to catch up and hear of her and dad's plans for Memorial Day. She's so cute. I talked to Dad for a bit too and always get a kick out of how chatty he is on the phone. Man, I love them. Last night I was having a nice talk with my husband and he said the most amazing thing to me. He said if someone ever came up to him and said his muscular dystrophy would be taken from him, but so would his wife, he would take the muscular dystrophy. If it meant living life without me, he would take the disease with me rather than live a healthy life without me. It made me cry. It made me cry again when I told my mom about it this afternoon. He's a keeper. ************************************** A Year Ago Today: May 31, 2003; Thoughts on freedom Lately I've been struggling with the freedom we have in Christ. To be totally honest, not so much the freedom I have in Christ, but the freedom offered to others who have a relationship with Him. In the Old Testament of the Bible, God gave 10 commandments. The first 5 cover man's relationship with God while the remaining 5 instruct us how to relate to each other. Then the jews came up with hundreds of other smaller commandments because they didn't want to even come within a hair's breadth of breaking any of the 10 commandments. So they lived under law. Constricted by do's and do nots. Their chain got shorter and shorter and the lived under scruinty. Neighbors watched neighbors for any signs or hints of broken commandments. Punishment was swift and harsh. Death. Imprisonment. Slavery. Eyes for eyes and teeth for teeth. Yikes! It was all about the legalism. Then along come Jesus. And He freaked out the establishment. He ate with prositutes and tax collectors. He healed people on the Holy Sabath day. He picked grain on the Holy Sabath day. He did things formerly thought of as no nos. AND He claimed to be the Son of God! Well, the people of that time knew that God wanted them bound by these laws. They delighted in their short chain. Knowing they were protected by it and could not get into any trouble if they just kept shortening the chain. But Jesus came and changed all that. He brought freedom. True freedom. He said He came to set the captives free. He spoke that truth on so many levels. Not only did He set people free from the captivity of illness, demonic possession, and death, but He set people free from sin, death, and the short chain. It's like instead of coming and agreeing with the use of the short chain, He took us off the chain altogether. And low and behold the yard is surrounded by a fence. There are still healthy boundaries, but now we are free to explore the WHOLE YARD. The boundaries keep us safe and protected and secure. But we are now free to explore our freedom within the whole yard and not just the circle the length of chain allows us to walk in. Where I struggle is that I am judgemental by nature. I try not to be. But when I see someone exploring an area of the yard that either I have not yet explored or that has maybe been made off limits to me, I tend to get all legalistic and think that they are doing something wrong. When in fact, they have just found the freedom to be so inspiring. It's like I clip myself back to the chain and expect them to clip on too. Sometimes the freedom is scary and I need the chain to feel secure again. We are free. Truly and exceptionally free to explore life within the tender and loving boundaries set up for us. But we have all total and complete freedom within those boundaries. Jesus said that there are 2 commandments that sum up all the law. The first one is the love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. The second is to love your neighbor as yourself. That is true freedom. You will not go outside the boundaries of true love for either God or others if you follow those commandments. Freedom for me, means living a life that shows love to others and my God. I need to remember that before I judge anyone else. They way they love others and God may not be the same way I would and yet they are still within the yard. True freedom lets go. 8:48 p.m. - Monday, May. 31, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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