Freedom That Looks LIKe love

By Danica McCall

Helpless, hopeless, and filled with despair, I was certain that my life was over.

I was 17 years old, lying on a hospital bed after an ambulance took me from the scene of a tragic car accident that killed my boyfriend, Donovan. The person behind the wheel that night was me. Propelled into a cloud of disbelief, I found myself immediately trapped in chains of shame and guilt. Freedom? Freedom couldn’t have felt further from me in that moment.

Just hours after the accident, Donovan’s family was insistent on speaking with me. Leaving their immediate grief, I could only imagine the sheer anger they hoped to bestow on me: “What were you thinking?” “How could you do something like this?” “You took away the most precious thing to us!” “You’ll pay for this!” 

Before I could cry out the words, “I’m sorry!” Donovan’s family rushed into the hospital room, embracing me in their arms. As they held me tightly, their words spilled over me, “We loved you when you left our house this evening, and we love you still. Nothing you’ve done could ever change that. You’re forgiven.” 

Could you imagine stepping away from your grief to inconveniently and unselfishly make sure someone knew they were loved and forgiven? If I’m being honest, I’m not certain I would be able to respond so quickly in love. 

Because Donovan’s family believed in a Savior who died for their sins, they believed He died for mine as well. And that through His death, there was eternal salvation. Through that eternal perspective, they knew that salvation for a lost teenage girl was more important than a grief that would remain only for a lifetime. To Donovan’s family, grief would inevitably be part of their lives for the rest of their time on earth. Yet, eternity would await them and reunite them with their son. Instead of wallowing in their momentary grief, they saw this opportunity to love as an investment in my own eternity, my own freedom.

Donovan’s family didn’t wait a year or even a week. Within hours of finding out their son’s death, they chose me over them. Before allowing shame to consume me, they showered love upon me. Donovan’s family knew that the key to freedom was love. The sacrificial love that Jesus demonstrated when He died on the cross was the same love they wanted me to experience, which led me to understand the grace and freedom in their forgiveness. When we give that kind of love away, we show others what Jesus did for us, as well as for them. 

Eventually, this love would radically remove the chains of guilt and shame that kept me from experiencing true freedom in Christ. Have you experienced that in your own story?

In our world, when someone hurts us or takes something precious from us, like the life of a child, the most logical thing to do is to seek revenge, receive justice, and ultimately make the accused pay the price for our hurt. While we may feel justified in our anger, Jesus calls us to a radical kind of love that requires sacrifice. The sacrifice of our own desires, but also our own bondage. When we hold on to revenge, we trap our souls in a bondage that we think is holding our offender hostage. But the reality is, we are enslaving ourselves. We become a slaves to our flesh, which desires strife, anger, revenge, enmity, and things alike. While the decisions of Donovan’s family freed me in many ways, I believe it also unlocked the doors to their own freedom. 

Galatians 5:13-15 tells us that the purpose of freedom is love: “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”

The way you love a person not only provides freedom for them, but freedom for yourself. The beautiful part about this kind of love is that it brings freedom to both parties involved. To love in a sacrificial way means to die to ourselves. Jesus tells us in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” If we desire to be true followers of Christ, we must love people in the way that He did, which means laying down our own desires and comforts daily to serve others. 

So, as you think about your own life, is there perhaps an opportunity where love could lead someone to their own freedom? Perhaps even your own? It’s time to start living in the purpose God intended for your life: to love.

Challenge/Activity:

• Choose one person to share your testimony with.

• Choose a day this week to serve someone who can’t repay you. This could be as simple as paying for someone’s meal. Or, perhaps God is calling you a step further by asking you to offer forgiveness to someone who could never repay the damage they have caused you. The key to your own freedom is love.