Earlier this week I wrote about how the internet is full of beautiful friends that we’ve never met. Caroline is one of those friends. I love this story, and I think you will too. There’s so much of what she’s written here that resonates with my own heart. It’s about everything good and beautiful in the world – Jesus, a honeymoon, freedom, and the beach. Enjoy!  -Micah

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Those of you that know me know it is rare to see a picture of me engaged in something close to exercise.

I was the secondary school kid who managed to evade inter-form cross country for four out of five years and scheduled her trumpet lessons to coincide with double PE (accidentally on purpose!) And now, if I say the word ‘exercise’ I rapidly feel the need to wash my mouth out with chocolate!

This photo was taken when Paul and I were on honeymoon. So marriage must have changed me… maybe.

The River Daron divides Aberdaron Bay and to get from one side of the beach to the other you have to cross it…. somehow. Paul jumped first, quickly cleared it, and left me behind slightly startled. I felt self-conscious jumping it alone, quietly irritated that he would leave me to fend for myself and just stand back and laugh and take photos. But I quickly realised he was laughing with me, encouraging me to stand on my own two feet, not to be reliant on other people quite so much. (I doubt any of this went on consciously in his head; I’m sure it’s just in his nature to be life giving and provocatively encouraging and that’s probably one of the reasons God gave us each other.)

But now a month has passed and I’m beginning to wonder if this photo was prophetic. It’s rare to catch a photo so well timed and Paul was amazed that he’d managed to take it while I was mid-air.

You see a couple of weeks ago I said to one of my soul friends,

“If I could just turn off the subtitles in my head, I know it would feel like running down the beach with my hands in the air shouting ‘Freedom!!’”

I’ve lived with subtitles in my head for a very long time. In fact I can’t really remember life without them:

“Whatever you do it’s not going to be enough. Whatever you say it’s not going to be quite right. You must get everything right. It’s not ok to feel. Your opinion must be validated by objective evidence. If you enjoy something it must be competing with God therefore you should stop doing it. The bit that’s most significant is the bit you did wrong.”

I know, scary insight into my psyche!  Feels vulnerable to share it but I have a sneaky suspicion I’m not the only one with these kinds of tapes running on continuous play in my head.

Since I’ve been off sick with reactive depression, I’ve had some counselling.  I really need to reframe what has happened to me and how I see the world because the way I’ve been running my life and the subtitles I’ve been living with have quietly been destroying the real me.

Last Monday I had my second counselling session and I realised there’s a great big gap between my subtitles and reality.

My counsellor said to me, “Where is God standing? Where your friends stand or at the opposite end where the subtitles are?”

I replied, “Oh He’s miles away from the subtitles!”

And then I started asking some more questions of myself. What if the biggest thing God is asking me to do is to start behaving like I really believe in who I am, not who I think I should be? What if God is in the realising of my inherent preciousness? What if I stopped ‘trying to please’ God and started living my life and being who I was created to be?

Well, I thought, that would be like running down the beach with my arms in the air shouting “Freedom!”

And the joy that flowed into me at that point was almost tangible. I wanted to sing, dance, write, laugh, grin…

As I woke up the day after my counselling, George Michael’s “Freedom 90” was running through my head. So I put it on in the kitchen and had a secret boogie while I emptied the dishwasher, occasionally throwing my hands in the air (between the stacking of crockery!). And I sang a bit too loudly, “There’s something deep inside of me; there’s someone I forgot to be… today the way I play the game has got to change. Oh yeah…Now I’m gonna get myself happy.”

I know it won’t be as easy as turning the subtitles off on the TV. My subtitles are in large print and bold sometimes. They’re a strong voice and I have a 36 year old habit of listening to them.

And crossing the river was a bit similar. I really didn’t manage it first leap. I had a wet foot and trouser leg for some time that morning because my stretch was not quite long enough for the Daron that day. I had to write this blog in small shifts because right now my body is simply too tired to write in long chunks.

And I know that this is not the end of my freedom fighting; it’s probably just the beginning. I’ve never felt so tired but so alive in all my life.

[ Check out Caroline’s blog at In Those Shoes ]