Living Loved Newsletter
Volume 1, Issue 1

Free to Love - How The Theme of My Life Came To Be

Posted January 15, 2008

Hospice chaplain, simple church planter, divine healing minister, prayer leader, Bible teacher, father, husband, grandfather, mentor, author, sometimes restless and hungering for God, and wanting to make sure that I get it right. I wanted to sense unity, purpose, clarity of priorities and direction and understanding. Were the areas too diverse? Was I spreading myself too thin? How could I draw it all together in a way that made sense and granted peace?

The answer began to come in an unexpected way. Mid-December. Addressing Christmas cards. The Holy Spirit said, "Send a card to Ann Marie". I was caught off guard. "And one more thing: Apologize. Ask for forgiveness. You have put this off too long. Do it now."

Spring. 1960. Forty-seven years ago. Students from the same small town high school and now attending the same college, Ann Marie confronted me after lunch on the campus commons one warm day in May at the end of my senior year. It was about persons, values, unfairness, hurt. I didn't get it. But... one day several years later I suddenly did get it. "So that's what that was about!" I exclaimed out loud, thankful that no one else was around. I felt foolish, sad, and deeply disappointed in me.

I knew that one day I must apologize but I kept putting it off thinking, "It no longer makes a difference, it was a long time ago, it is forgotten and over". Problem: Ann Marie is not a throw-away relationship. She is person I care about. Besides, the Spirit says that if it keeps coming back it's not forgotten and it's not over.

I addressed the card, wrote a note of apology for being so insensitive and asked for forgiveness. When I dropped the card in the mail the next day I noticed a distinct sense of freedom. And peace.

Christmas Eve day these words kept coming time and again: Free to love. Free to love. Free to love. Late that afternoon it dawned on me: There was the theme and focus of my life! Free to love! In whatever form, time or place the Holy Spirit leads. Free to love! I began to feel a very special sense of peace and freedom. Why? Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." James, in the second chapter of his epistle, writes (of Abraham) that obedience completes faith.

I had been restless and unfocused because even though I knew truth I had not been obedient to truth and until I was I would not be totally free to love. Many, many years ago I made a list of everyone I could think of who I might have hurt or offended in any way and I sent each one a note which read, "I seek your forgiveness for any way in which I may have hurt or offended you. Please forgive me." Obviously, I had omitted Ann Marie. Once obedient, peace and freedom came.

What the Spirit saying was, "Your life is not about priorities or purpose or focus. It's about surrender. Just stay sensitive to what I am doing around you. You just love on the people who are there and I'll do the rest. Hospice, grand children, nursing home, Bible study, family... you just do the loving, I'll work out the equation. I'll balance the formula".

I am passionate about "Free to Love" as the theme and focus of my life. My passion and desire are to live life at the very core, at the simplest, purest, most intimate level possible with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and to pour out that passion and purpose and intimacy with others in such a way that they will develop a passion for the same. When I awaken in the morning I am free to ask with a sense of excitement and expectation, "O.K. What next?", knowing that love, joy, tears, purpose and laughter will all be in the mix.

Free to love is free to live, and when we are free in Christ we are free to love and live richly and abundantly. That's his promise.

In some ways it is sad that it has taken almost 70 years to reach this point; but I also rejoice because who knows, who can imagine what the Lord may do yet with a soul set free. At any age.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord.