Freedom

Sometimes we take for granted how free we really are. We are truly blessed to live in a country that allows us to worship God freely. Today at church the closing song was "I Am Free" and it really touched my heart as Hannah was singing this song. If she lived in China she would not be allowed to worship Jesus Christ freely and openly. Sometimes it takes those little moments in life for us to really realize how lucky we are to have the freedom of where we live, but also to know we have freedom in Jesus Christ as our personal LORD and Savior.
 There is a story that comes to my mind every time I hear this song, from when we were in China. We were walking around the streets near our hotel one evening and the kids had made some friends with some of the shop owners and workers there. I was holding Hannah and this really cute young girl came up to me and asked me if I was Jacob and Emilys mama?  She came up to talk to me about Hannah and to tell me how excited she was for us. She kept telling me how LUCKY this baby was. I had several young girls tell me this, so I decided to ask her why she is so lucky? I will never forget the words that came out of that young ladies mouth. She said that she is going to have FREEDOM! I asked her what she considered freedom? Her reply back to me was "she is going to have freedom in everything"...... She looked at me and said, "I know you are a CHRISTIAN!" I swallowed hard on that one. Here I am standing on the streets of a country that doesn't allow people to openly share their faith. I looked at her and asked, "How do you know I am a Christian?" Her reply was, "By your actions!" She said, "I could tell because your children are so nice!" I waited for a moment to get my head on straight and decided to ask her if she knew about Jesus. She looked down at the ground and all she could tell me is that she has heard of him, but she wants to know more and she wanted a Bible. I didn't have a Bible on me or I would have given it to her, but I did tell her that the church on the island hands out Bibles every Sunday morning. (But only on Sunday mornings.)  She promised me that she would go get one. At that moment I realized we are so lucky to have Freedom in America and if we know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we have all the freedom in the world!! I am so humbled to say that as Hannah's mama I am giving her a chance that she would have never been able to have by learning to love and one day accept Jesus Christ as her own personal Lord and Savior.