Changed By Love

Freedom is a good thing. We Douglases really value freedom. We are very independent and are glad to live in a country that allows more freedoms than so many other countries do.

We celebrate Freedom on more occasions than just the 4th of July. We have a day we call Freedom Day, which happens to fall on or near Halloween. We have chosen to celebrate Freedom on that day instead of the traditional things that are celebrated on that day. We celebrate Freedom instead of Halloween.

The one thing our celebration has in common with the traditional celebration is — CANDY!!!

On or near October 31st, I buy lots of candy, and I make up lists of questions for each child, based on what they’ve been learning in homeschool.

Then I ask each one a question, and when they get the right answer they get to choose 2 pieces of candy.

Sometimes it moves kind of slowly, but they entertain each other between their questions, so they all really like it. They know the pay-off for their patience is going to be very sweet, so it helps them to wait their turn.

In this way, we can review what we have been learning and do some narration and earn candy all at the same time. Works for me! The kids look forward to this every year. When they hear others start talking about Halloween, they start asking me when Freedom Day is.

We went to Blessington Farms that same day, and Garrett tied into our theme of Freedom by doing the Statue of Liberty pose in one of our pictures.

On Freedom Day we celebrate Freedom of Religion, Freedom to homeschool, Freedom of Speech, and Freedom in Christ.

Which leads me to the second part of this post…

Did you know this was going to be a two-part post?

I’m throwing in this second part for free. dom. 🙂

Have you ever thought about what Freedom in Christ is?

What are we free from when we are in Christ?

Well, one thing we are free from is sin. When we make Jesus Lord of our lives, we are no longer slaves to sin.

We may still sin, but it is really our choice. We have power over sin if we ask the Lord to help us not to sin anymore, and we access the power of the Holy Spirit to help us.

Another thing we are free from is satan’s dominion over us. He cannot make us do anything.

But –

If we don’t enforce our freedom, the devil knows ways to keep us in bondage.

He uses things like generational curses, generational sins, things that our ancestors participated in and pronounced on their descendants to cause problems in our lives just because they have never been specifically broken over us. These things are some of the demonic strongholds spoken of in II Corinthians 10:4 –

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,”

When Gary and I went away for our anniversary last weekend, I knew that I was supposed to help him get freedom from some things that the enemy was still using to keep him in bondage. There were some things he was doing, things he was thinking, mindsets, and attitudes that I knew were not really the way Gary was supposed to be.

These things were damaging his relationships with members of our family.

I knew that he couldn’t see them himself.

So I prayed about our anniversary trip the whole week before we went. I found a Bed and Breakfast not far from home. It was in a peaceful, country setting. The room I chose had a living room portion, too, with a nice couch, chair, recliner and coffee table. So we were able to sit and relax and talk about what was going on.

I brought some things to his attention. When I mentioned specific things he said or did, he told me he didn’t remember them. As we kept talking and praying about these things, I realized that there was demonic interference that was causing him to do and say things. He said that a shroud came down over his head sometimes and he would puzzle about something, he was kept preoccupied with trying to figure something out and it would last a while, and then when he came back to attention everybody would be acting strange, like something bad had just happened, and he didn’t know what it was.

Here’s how he described it:

“Like a shroud – a panicked feeling to resolve what was before me or else – not just one thing but several, and it created an unreal amount of pressure, feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and just impending doom and condemnation. I got used to it – just figured it was just me trying to solve the world’s problems.”

I would later tell him he did this or that, but he didn’t remember those things. When he described it that way, I realized that I had been talking to and dealing with a demon at times, thinking it was Gary, and I was getting really mad at Gary when I should have been mad at the devil.

After we realized who the enemy was and what he had been doing, we prayed about how he got in and what right he had to stay in Gary’s life and control him like that. We knew that it had to do with a familiar spirit passed down through his family line. We believe it was from a great uncle that was a shaman of the Cherokee.

Gary wrote down the list of behaviors, mindsets and attitudes and repented of them, came out of agreement with them, and commanded spirits associated with them to leave. Then he told the familiar spirit to leave, all of this in Jesus’ name.

After a while, he started laughing. He felt a change. He felt lighter. He felt free.

He started treating me different after that. I haven’t felt so loved and cherished in a long time!

Yes, indeed, Freedom is a good thing.