Why Wild + Free?

Because sometimes I leave an amazing event or gathering with only the lingering feeling that I am too much and never enough. 

Because putting on red lipstick and a smile is not actual freedom and I'm tired of false fruit. 

Because Jesus was wild. 

Because where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. 

Because I've had four kids in six years and that kind of birthing and bringing can make you feel stale. 

Because I believe that obedience is wild and there is freedom in submission. 

Because I don't want to live in fear of who God made me to be when He has said I am good and made for His glory. 

I'm an experiential conceptualizer through and through. When I want something or see it needed or long for it, I can usually describe it as the experience that would be fruit of the actual change before I can verbalize the need or desire itself. For example, I don't really know the five things I could be doing right now to be a more compassionate and loving mom, but I do know that when or if the Lord blesses my daughter Glory with kids of her own - I want her to trust me enough to be in the room when she gives birth. I start with the small experience that will be found in the fruit and work back from there. 

My heart for living wild and free started there, in the far off experiences that I knew were actually just within my grasp. I'd see a gal walking down the streets of downtown Charleston - purposefully and stylishly dressed. I'd see her and wince, not because I wanted her style -- but because I wanted my own. And it wasn't that style in and of itself mattered, but the lies that lived in the places where style should or could have. The lies that told me my body wasn't worth styling and my life wasn't worth accessorizing - those things mattered and I missed being able to experience feeling set free in my own style. 

I'd walk by my kids playing quietly on the floor as I was on my way to reheat my coffee or sign some forms or make some lunches for the next day and in my mind's eye I'd get a flash of what could be. I'd see myself rolling and making car noises and laying quietly beside them, listening to them for as long as they needed, without a care of what came next or where I was "supposed" to be. I longed for the freedom to play and be used up and love with abandon. 

I have this picture of a wife who is ferociously loyal and intensely secure. She is sent on mission by the Lord alone and delights in His call on her life when it means cleaning toilets and laying hands on her husband to pray. She finds freedom in knowing she'll never be just right and she'll always be just His. Her heart grows hot with a sense of home when her husband whispers "I need you over here, can you come help?" and she's also keenly aware of the fact that she can't meet all the needs. 

I can picture a world where I am wild and free in my friendships. 

I imagine passing freedom in Christ - like sloppy peach pie with a massive dollop of whip cream - around a table of women I love. 

I see generations of wild Connolly women to come, living outside of the chains of culture crisis and inside the structure of servanthood of Jesus. 

And because I am not there, and even though I don't see the five steps to get there, I want to be wild and free.