Shame, depression and grief enslave; grace, vulnerability, and authenticity provide freedom. I want to explore freedom. I want freedom!

What is Freedom?

The opposite of being enslaved is freedom. Depression and unhealthy shame enslave. Grief can also enslave the griever into a life lived in and for the past. Freedom is having the power, the rights, and the ability to say, do, and think without hindrance or restraint. There are, of course, limitations imposed by society through government and social norms that limit full freedom.

When it comes to my faith, I think that freedom has a similar but different definition. Freedom is a gift from God to believers imbuing them with the power, rights and abilities of the Holy Spirit whom God sent at Pentacost. However, there is a tension in humankind’s relationship, collectively and individually, with the Holy Spirit because of the coercive affects of sin. As a result of man’s sin the relationship with the Holy Spirit is not fully realized. Without complete unity with the Holy Spirit, humankind does not maximize the freedom God intends for us to experience.

Where Does Freedom Come From?

Freedom ultimately comes from God. God desired to free humankind from our enslavement to sin. To do that, He sent us Jesus who according to the structure God established to remedy the impacts of sin—which is death—sent His son Jesus to live on earth. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are not currently, nor never will we be, enslaved to sin. So, if enslavement to sin is the opposite of freedom and Jesus’s sacrifice removes forever mankind’s enslavement to sin, then we are free!

Have I Lived Embracing Freedom?

Simply, no. I have been enslaved by shame, depression, and to a lesser degree grief. My shame, depression, and grief—all a result of my sinful nature—make me feel unworthy of the great gift God gives us, freedom through grace.

Evidence of my not embracing freedom is long, too long to type. The impacts of sin on my life, my daughter’s lives, and the lives of those I interact with is immeasurable. But it is not without hope. God’s grace is sufficient for me and for you and I am trusting that God is working within me to justify me and reconcile me.

I think of my former dating relationship. My grief, feelings of shame—inadequacy and unworthiness—and to a degree depression, unfortunately enslaved my ability to freely and fully love her, help her, compliment her, give her my grace, and to provide her loving correction. I struggled to embrace the freedom to relate to her with the confidence I should have—and she should have—through Jesus Christ. Rather, I embraced self-control. I defaulted to taking and controlling—selfishness—rather than graciously and selflessly receiving and allowing. It has been damaging to me, my girls, to my ex-girlfriend, to my relationship with my ex-girlfriend, and most importantly to my relationship with God.

How Should I Live in Light of Freedom?

I should be confident and bold and not be weighted down by enslavement to shame, depression, and grief. I should live a life demonstrating my belief in life through the spirit (see Romans 8). I embrace the last two verses, verses 38 and 39, of Romans 8.

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I also lean on Galatians 5:1.

1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

How Does Freedom Look?

I have been blessed personally to have been married to Bridget. During her brief battle with cancer, and before she died, Bridget gave me the freedom to continue on living. She gave me the freedom to not be enslaved by the inevitable grief and despair. She encouraged me to marry soon. Bridget encourage our daughters to embrace a new mom and to be adopted by that new mom as her daughters.

It is now time for me to claim the freedom
given to me by God and by Bridget.

Freedom from Control

I like to be in control and I have for a long, long time. Working with my counselor, I have learned that my desire to control has amplified in the past 6-years in response to the death of my wife—an uncontrollable event that transformed my life—and in response to the many responsibilities I took on following Bridget’s cancer diagnosis and death. Striving to be under control is good, striving to control is not good.

I’m an analytical, black and white, linear thinker. As I mention in my post on receiving, I believe in inputs and outputs, balanced exchanges, quid pro quo. The problem is life is largely about relationships with people and people do not—and should not—fit within a balanced exchange paradigm. I’m learning this and practicing releasing control. It is hard, but I believe it is right and good.

Freedom to Live Beyond Bridget

Bridget died August 12, 2008. While I miss her and loved the nearly 8 years we had together, I’ve felt enslaved to her these past few years. This is an enslavement that Bridget didn’t command me to feel or desire me to feel. Rather, she desired the opposite and communicated that to me. Her family has expressed their desires to keep Bridget’s memory alive and also have encouraged me to continue exploring a life without Bridget. The struggle to live with freedom beyond Bridget has been difficult. I have struggled to reconcile no longer being a husband, being an only living parent, dating and the emotions that come along with it, and I have struggled to have a balanced or correct relationship with what I have perceived as my responsibilities as a parent, son, son-in-law, surviving spouse, boyfriend, employee, host parent to an au pair, etc.

Through the reading of A Grace Disguised, counseling, prayer, and journaling, I am becoming aware, acknowledging, and working on moving to a more healthy relationship with Bridget’s legacy and my responsibilities to that legacy. I’ve written on this process in my reflections on A Grace Disguised.

Freedom to Focus on “Core”—Faith, Myself, Girls, and Family

My priorities are and have been my faith, my kids, and my family. No matter what, I would answer what is core for me with these top-four. My time and actions, however, didn’t always tie back to these four. As an example, growing and achieving in the workplace is important to me, but it supplants my core four too often.

What I need to do is be more intentional about the responsibilities I have to complete (i.e., providing a safe and nurturing Christian home) and the perceived responsibilities I take on (i.e., having guests over for dinner once a week). If the responsibility doesn’t strengthen or illuminate the faith of my family, myself, Grace and/or Chloe, or my family, then I need to slow down and consider it thoughtfully.

Freedom to Love Fully Again

I have wanted to fully love someone for a few years. If you were to ask me, I felt ready to date, ready to love, and excited to share my life with someone. It proved more difficult than I imagined and filled me with lots of confusion as to why. The two girls I dated are amazing people. The most recent ex-girlfriend has most everything I desire in a spouse, compassionate, wise, beautiful, godly, and has great perspective and expectations on the matters of life. However, I was not able to fully love her. I had the desire to love her, but didn’t have the freedom in my heart.

Again, reading A Grace Disguised, reflecting on that book, and talking with my counselor and family has given me an understanding of key areas that hindered my ability to love fully. I have either posted, or will post, blog entries on these key areas; my reflections on A Grace Disguised will provide some as well. The bottom line for me is that I recognize and acknowledge that I need to focus on what my core desires are—faith of my family, raising my girls, taking care of myself, and having a family. When I say “having a family” I intend for that family to include a new wife and mom. I also recognize and can now acknowledge that I constricted my freedom after Bridget died by layering different expectations and perceptions onto how I thought, behaved, and felt.

Freedom to Not Worry About Other People’s Expectations

I have always been concerned about living up to the expectations of others, specifically those that I admire such as family members and close friends. This worry has served to motivate me to strive and achieve. The downside is that it places a pressure on me—a pressure I place upon myself—to prioritize things in my life to meet other’s expectations. And, quite honestly, I have never paused to consider if I have misinterpreted the expectations of others. I have my suspicions now that I have both strived to live up to other people’s expectations, but I have also inflated what those people truly expect of me. Not to mention there is a certain arrogance/self-centeredness to think that these people are even thinking about me!

This creates an anxiety that keeps a hold of me. It pressures me to prioritize my activities based on what might please others, but might be significantly less important for driving what is core—my family’s faith, myself, my girls, and my family. I can look back over the past six years at numerous examples of this lack of freedom. Now, I understand there is a healthy component to being self-aware and to reflect on the impacts of my actions and decisions on others. If I am engaged in my relationship with Jesus, and striving to live a life that glorifies God and servicing what is “core” to my life, then I believe the natural fruit of this type of life will exceed any healthy expectations of others. If not, that is okay.

Freedom to Be Authentic

It scares me to be truly authentic. There is a doubt, feelings of inadequacy, fear of not meeting my expectations and the expectations I feel others have placed upon me. There is a striving to exceed the expectations of others. A striving to exceed something that is often undefined and truly a dynamic goal that I revise up in the times I achieve. Perfectionism is like chasing the wind, it truly is meaningless; but it is intoxicating. It is my addiction.

Now, to be clear, I am not close to perfect and there are only aspects of life that I embrace striving to exceed the expectations of others. Examples are things like work product, personal finance, and parenting. I also cultivate an image of being reasonably frugal, unaffected by stress and disappointment—a cool cat. I’m not a wholesale fraud, but there is a lot that is hidden. Or, said in a manner that I think better explains what I think living authentically really is, I spend time and energy attempting to cultivate an image of me to others rather than share the true me—warts and all—with others.

I can’t imagine anyone who does not struggle to live a fully authentic life. Like many aspects of life, there is a spectrum—a tension—between being a perfectionist cultivating a well defined persona to being 100% real, no filter on your words, thoughts, or actions. We live in this tension. I believe that God desires us to live close if not at the 100% side of the authentic scale. Our society reinforces a need to cultivate a perfect persona. The Biblical economy is not the same as our social economy. Biblical is filled with grace, society is filled with shame.

Freedom to Be Vulnerable and to Fail

After Bridget died I protected myself from vulnerability. Being vulnerable gives access for others to criticize and judge—and the resulting feeling I get when criticized and judged which is failure. I felt if I avoided vulnerability I could avoid adding to the fear and pain I already was experiencing. Being vulnerable, however, also gives others closer access to me allowing them to provide sympathy and support.

I have learned that without being vulnerable—without the confidence to fail, feel the pain of loss or failure, and then picking myself up and continuing on—I haven’t been able to consistently give and receive the deep love and belonging that I need, that I crave.

I get caught in the tension of believing that I should be fully vulnerable, confident to face the criticism and judgement of man because I believe and know that the criticism and judgement of man doesn't defeat the saving grace God provides me. Vulnerability leads to creativity and exploration and sometimes success, sometimes failure. Why be afraid to fail since I believe that I am saved by God and thus not a failure in His eyes. God sees me as perfect, why can’t I?

The tension is a result of living in a sin-filled world. God’s plan, which is perfect, is overlaid upon a sinful world full of sinners that do in fact criticize, judge, and reinforce feelings of failure. I live in this word, not in Heaven. I can’t be insulated from these feelings because I am not what I aspire to be; I am in fact not perfect.

So, to live vulnerably I need to be in this sin-filled world, but never of this sin-filled world (Romans 12:2). I need to be body on earth, soul and mind in His Kingdom. I need to be in closer and more consistent relationship with Christ. I need to strive for relationship with Christ and not for perfection.

Freedom to Receive God’s Grace

I believe that God freely gives his grace to those that believe in Him. (As I mentioned before, my belief is dynamic. At times my belief is heart-felt and at times intellectual, at times intimate and at times distant, at times admiring and at times resentful.) As I understand grace, no matter my posture in the moment toward God, His grace is poured out for those that believe. I can relate to this because as my daughters posture towards me changes day-by-day, it does not diminish my love, nurturing, and grace for them.

I believe that God’s first gracious act in my life was when He chose me to be His son. Nothing I did and nothing I could have done can compel God to chose me. He stole my heart for Him. He captured me.

However, I often don’t provide myself the freedom to receive God’s grace. I think there a couple key reasons for this. At times it is due to my doubt or diminished belief. It is a challenge to receive such a valuable gift when you doubt if the giver exists. At times it is due to shame. When in shame and feeling worthless, it is hard to receive grace when you don’t believe you deserve to receive anything!

Freedom from Perfectionist Pursuits

I also believe that God perfects those that he chooses. This journey to perfection plays out in my desire to reflect His love, oversight, and provision for me through my love of others, caring for others, and generosity to others. However, I am not perfect, I am everything but. Like many of the ideas I am processing and reflecting upon, there is a tension in the spectrum.

“…From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded…”
(Luke 12:48)

I have had this passage read to me, told to me, and reinforced by me throughout my life. God has blessed me in many ways and growing up in a Christian home has informed me that my talents are gifts; they are grace. It has also informed me that there needs to be a striving, a sort of maximization of my god-given talents. We are asked, or told, to live more like Christ; life should be striving. What is the motivation for this striving? Do I strive for Christ or do I strive for myself and other’s perceptions of me? Do I control or does Christ control? If I lose my way and start to control and strive for myself, then am I not trying to elevate myself beyond God’s design for me? And, if that is where I place myself, then would I no longer need God’s grace? I would have elevated myself to a co-equal with Christ.

The clear reality is that I am a sinner. There is only one thing I should strive for and that is a closer, more vulnerable, and more authentic relationship with God—He knows my every action and thought and deed so my privacy and secrecy is stripped before Him. Accepting I am a failure from birth and accepting Him as my savior allows me to receive grace.

Freedom to Step Away From Unhealthy Shame

Shame has been categorized as healthy—shame that drives us closer to a godly life—and unhealthy shame—shame that drives us away from the person God designed. I have felt both types of shame, but want to focus on my unhealthy shame.

My shame is revealed to me in a couple of different ways. Compliments shine a light on my shame. When people say that I worked well, performed well, treated someone well, or look particularly good, my default reaction is to negate the compliment. Often I’ll tell them they are wrong; “I didn’t give a good presentation. There were three times I did not engage the audience when I should have.” Also, expectations illuminate my shame. I have loosely defined and dynamic goals for my life, but I am goal focused. Within my career I want to succeed and rise up. But, I have never defined my goal as to what specific level I want to achieve. As a result, I am always chasing and never achieving. I can be proud of the chase while also maintaining shame for not achieving the ultimate goal. It reminds me of an aggressive highway driver who sets a goal to pass the Volkswagen which is three cares in front of her. When she pulls along side that Volkswagen she immediately looks ahead another four cars to the Lexus and readjusts her goal. In the process dismissing catching the Volkswagen; its driver must have been too cautious to mark its passing as an accomplishment.