Seventeen years I sought to lay myself down, do the "right" thing according to God, put aside my desires. Starting now, this chapter of my life is closed.
I'm doing what I want for a change. I'm not asking permission, not caring if my husband disapproves, not worrying about the peanut gallery. It is time to be me. I was her once, before marriage and kids and my God-encounter, but she got lost in the shuffle to be a "true" Christian. I will be her again. I will be me.
I'll choose by my desires: I'll sin. I'll hate. I'll love. I'll repent. But I will do it because I desire it, not because hooks of condemnation about what I'm supposed to do as a Christian rips my nose that way. I trained seventeen years with those embankments. I'll remember the lessons they taught me, and I'll continue to build upon them, but I will choose God and a holy life purely because I desire it, no reason else.
If that means others will call me irreverent, disrespectful, ungodly, worldly, or just plain full of sin, then call me guilty. But I'll be a guilty Christian, for I continue to know and love Jesus, and--more important--He continues to love and know me.
