Living on the Other Side of The Wall

I was just a young girl when I remember seeing the wall being torn down that separated East and West Germany like it was yesterday. East Germany had been under communist control and the West was free. Although I know I was too young to fully understand the significance of that moment, I remember the emotional impact I experiences as I watched those people spill through the wall. Years later (like a decade or more,) I was in Germany visiting a friend who lives in the West Side of Germany. I went for a little walk at the Sienachtfest which is a festival of the lake that is also shared by Austria and Switzerland. I took a little rest beside the lake and met a young man named Jens. He spoke English as well as I spoke German, but for whatever reason we were able to communicate for a short conversation. He was from East Germany. As a goody-two-shoes from Bible Belt USA, I was just as surprised to meet someone like him with his way of Godless thinking as he was to meet someone like me. He was physically free enough now to visit the "other side of the wall," but he was not free in his mind. I'll never forget the look on his face as I spoke of hope and he spoke of the lack of it. After a few minutes, I left him to find my friend, but I knew in my inner most being that soon he would find who I had and that one day I would have another conversation with him in eternity. I think of him often.

He had been made free since he was a boy, and he thought he was free. But he still lived in a state of control in his mind and heart. He was born into a system that made him codependent and left no hope in his heart. He HAD been made free, but he just wasn't awaken to it fully. I identify with this too in a way. We have all been made free from a system that keeps our hearts in bondage, but some of us are awakened to it more than others. Everyday I realize the freedom I thought I walked in yesterday was not as free as I am today. The deeper revelation of Father's simplistic love for me, the more freedom I awaken too. It's a state of contentment and rest and peace that is birthed from the awareness of his love and value for us. It's the kind of freedom we live in know matter where our physical location. It reminds me of one of my favorite stories. Peter was in jail strapped to two soldiers surrounded by many more laying on the floor of a jail awaiting the death sentence his good friend John had just received, and the Bible tells us he was sleeping like a baby. What in the world? Peter was awaken to a reality in his mind that was more real than any place this world had to offer. I'm excited to wake up to HIS life freedom for me more and more. That is living in REAL freedom.