Free at Last...Thank God Almighty I am Free At Last

Good morning my friends! I missed posting on Friday. I didn’t fall asleep until 3:00am Friday morning. I was finishing a book that I am going to share with you today in the post. I am ashamed to say that I didn’t wake up until 1:00pm Friday afternoon. I am serious. Kevin obviously kept things quiet and the boys were at school. I got up showered and our whole family went out for supper and some window browsing. Cory was looking for a particular color dress shirt and all of Spartanburg didn’t have one. We literally came home without a bag. Good for finances but we were exhausted.

Before I start my post for today, I want to acknowledge some friends who were so kind during my recent illness. I am sure I will forget someone but please don’t be hurt. I appreciate all the prayers and support I received tangible and not. I tend to go on and on selfishly in these posts and not acknowledge the hearts of my blogging friends. I am sorry. Tami, Rheta, and Rita thank you for my cards. There is nothing like receiving a pretty card with handwritten well wishes. Wanda, Wanangwa, Lisa, Sonia, Robin(s), Jennifer and Kim, you are my computer savvy friends. Thank you for the emails and comments that added pep and encouragement to my days. Sherri and Deanna thank you for your time and your hugs. Thank you all. I love having friends. Though you all have read my life…my heart, you still hang in here with me. I am very grateful.

The book I read Thursday night-Friday morning is Incidents of a Slave Girl. It is an autobiography of a slave girl of the 1800s here in North Carolina. A friend of mine gave me this book many years ago. I recently recovered/rediscovered it. I find it a little odd that the person who gave me this book probably has a family history of slave ownership and discrimination. She has told stories of having “hired” help from the African American community, yet she has spoken of the “help” as family and with warm affection. I believe this book was very inspirational for her and she thereby wanted to share it. She has only shared one other book with me in the 15 years I have known her.

I say all this to let you know that this book is truly special. It is not special because of its history. It is not another book about the cruelty of slave ownership, and/or filled with oppression and other historical facts. It has elements of this nature but it is more about a woman’s quest to have the freedom to raise her children and live her life. It is about a woman having the opportunity to make “choices” for her family and her life. I was mesmerized by this woman’s life. I want you to realize something from her life that I am going to share below. I will reveal it in the end. Then I want you to reflect and appreciate the concept and the reality of this “something”.

Linda was a slave in the early 1800s. She started out in a slave family with a father and mother. She didn’t know she was a slave child. She had two parents who loved her and her brother. Her father is traded away. Her mother dies. Her grandmother has to raise her. Linda becomes of age and is bought for a doctor’s infant daughter. She grows up with the daughter as a friend. She grows into her teen years and the doctor begins a sexual relationship with her and the wife of the doctor becomes jealous. Linda goes into a relationship with another slave friend and has two children. She is unable to marry and raise her children because she is the doctor’s daughter’s slave. Until the daughter is old enough to legally free her, she is still the household slave. Linda eventually runs away from another household that she was temporarily assigned to since the doctor’s wife was jealous. She has to hide for several years in the roof/eave of a shed on her grandmother’s property. She is unable to tell her children she is alive and just feet from where they are. Linda eventually escapes to the North and is hunted down recurrently by the doctor and his family. It isn’t until the doctor dies and that another family in New York buys her freedom that she is truly free. She is reunited with her children during this time. They are almost adults.

This book is so precious to me ladies because what we ladies can do so freely, Linda had to do in her imagination and/or with risk. She couldn’t touch; she couldn’t speak, nor even smell of her children. We love the smell of baby lotion, bubble baths and for those of us with older children the smell of perfume and cologne. She didn’t get the bear hugs. She didn’t get to tell them loving things nor give gentle discipline. Girlfriends, she wasn’t able to ask or give forgiveness. I think of how we don’t always tell our children or those we love around us how much they mean to us. We don’t always offer or grant forgiveness like we should. We hold on to bitterness, or resentment because of hurt feelings or feelings of neglect. Why my friends? We think we have time. We say to ourselves “Let me have a little self indulgence…let me sulk in the injustice done to me for a minute.” What?

I read this book and told myself that I honestly and obviously don’t know the extent of the magnificent magnitude of the freedom given to us by Christ. It cost Him a human death. This slave girl kept the faith. She had a grandmother who continued to profess God’s sovereignty in the assignment of slavery. She often quoted scriptures. Ladies, here is my point.

We can’t appreciate “freedom” if we have never had it take away from us.

I keep thinking about this. I don’t want my freedom taken away from me. I want to choose and live my life according to my time table….God’s time table ultimately. Girlfriends, I think because we have “freedom” we think we have time...lots of it. I would caution you, however, to not just bask in freedom but take this freedom that Jesus died for us to have and put it to use for its original purpose…eternal life. Invest in eternal life…share with our family, friends, and coworkers. Share who Jesus is and how He has changed your life. Let your family see a truly changed life. The world with its politics could and has taken, in other parts of the world, our Bibles and churches away but our life testimonies cannot be taken away. Start first with your children and those close to you. Let them see Jesus in you. Give that big long hug and when they say “Why are you hugging me?” Tell them, “Just because I can!”

Thank you, Lord, for the freedom to live without condemnation and for the hope of life everlasting. Amen. acf