My Secret Identity

Do y'all (over the age of...mmm...thirty-eight or so) remember that show? My Secret Identity? I'm pretty sure it was too cheesy for even Netflix to pick up.

Moving on....

The past couple of weeks (or months, I don't really know) I've been described as a few things, sometimes by other people, sometimes it's the voice in my head.
I've read it in blogs, heard it on the news shows,
that if I believe one way, I must be _____.

We've all got labels, wanted and not.
There are titles we wear proudly, and others we just wear.
Cause they might be true.
Some of them we wear because we just can't seem to shake 'em.

They can be adjectives to describe our God-given personality,
the darkest parts of us, or the stuff in-between.
You know: the good, the bad, the ugly.

If we hear them long enough,
they could become the totality of who we believe we are.
The sum of us.

Wife
Mom
Homeschool Mom
Type A (winking at my friend*)
Fat
Goodie Two Shoes
Crazy
Spaz
Organized
Confident
Super conservative
Fake
Opinionated
Foul
Ridiculous
Emotional
Christian
Not a Christian (It's an election year)
Loud
Bad A** (actually, I said that one. Ha!)
Sinner (Nobody can out-sin me.)
Racist
Pretty
Homophobic
Medicated
Evangelical
Evangelical Conservative
Tough
Teacher
Manic
Contradictory (If nothing else, this.)
Vain
Bigot
Depressed
Too much
Too little
Legit
Awesome
Over the top
High strung
A hot mess

Oh, there's more. No doubt.

Some of these are spot on.
The rest have probably been spot-on at one point or another.

Of all those labels and adjectives, there's the one that I have the most difficulty remembering:

I am free.

Free.

If you are reading this, and you call Jesus "Lord",
you are free.
You are free from the box that someone wants you to fit in.
You are free from the past.

Easy to say.

I am free from condemnation.
By God's grace that can only be described as scandalous,
I am free from my sin.
I am free from others' sins against me.
I am free of labels.
I am free to change my mind.
I am free to repent, to change direction.
I am free to serve.
I am free to love.
I am free to give.

So are you. We are free.

We are free to belong to the One who made us and
loves me even though He knew we would reject Him.

We are free. We are free because Jesus of Nazareth set us free.

Yes. It's cheesy.
But, the pic is mine so no one will get mad at me.

Free indeed.

You don't even have to keep it a secret.
*Smile*