Break the Mold and Be Free

Break the Mold Last night I painted. I haven’t painted in over ten years. It was past time. I broke out my watercolors and acrylics. The first painting I did was horrible. Why? It was confined. Restricted. See, my high school art teacher would correct me whenever I tried to draw or paint abstract. Even in advanced art honors classes she would continue. I was never allowed to unleash me. Now I won lots of awards for my scenes of wildflowers and farm life, but there was something inside me that wanted to break out of the “expected of me” mold I had been shoved into. Last night. I took a blank sheet of mixed media paper, acrylic paints and watercolors and placed them before me. I turned up the cello music. Closed my eyes and let myself feel. Opened my eyes (sometimes). And I painted. I haven’t thought of a name for it, my painting, but a family member saw it and was amazed by it. Said she could see raw emotion in it. Today I got back to writing poetry. And I decided to do what I did for my painting. I chose to not write in the confines of stanza and line breaks and iambic pentameter. I wrote from my inner core. Five poems. My fiction writing has changed as well. My adult novel is full of hope and despair; love and perseverance. I don’t flinch from anything in this novel. I hope to finish it in March. Whatever is holding you back. Break out of it. Be free.

Baggage

I decided to clean out my file cabinet. Years of receipts, credit card, and bank statements. Carbon copies of checks from 4 years ago, and old prescription receipts. It was time to get rid of it all. It filled an entire garbage bag (kitchen size not lawn size). It was heavy. Extremely heavy. And because the bag contains my personal information I couldn't just throw it out. It was also too much for my home shredder. I have to take it to a place that will shred it for me-for a fee.
I have to carry this bag around until I have a chance to take it to the shredder. It didn't take long for me to realize this was a metaphor for baggage we carry in our lives.
Each of us for one reason or another chooses to carry around this huge bag labeled "the past". We take it with us from relationship to relationship, job to job, state to state. We don't need to carry it but we do. We can't just toss it aside-it has personally identifiable information.
What we can do is take it to Jesus. He wants our baggage. He takes all that stuff from our past and shreds it till nothing recognizable is left.
Before that can happen we have to go through our lives and pull out all the junk from the past (He's good at pointing those out too). Then we have to agree to give it to the Master-Jesus and not try to take it back and carry it around.
Another step we often do us accumulate new baggage. We're free from our old lives but due to unresolved guilt or hurt from our past we start accumulating more baggage. Stop it!
Christ made you new. Don't collect more baggage to carry around. Live in the freedom Jesus has granted you. No more baggage.