Both Sides Now

Emily and I are writing a column for our church's ladies' newsletter. Here's our first one:

Emily: I like my school. One of my friends has been going to that school for five years and my other friend’s first year was last year. One of my old friends told me that the boys wear church shirts and knickers, but I told him what we really wore. I think the uniforms are good.

Karen: See, I thought you might not like having to wear the same thing everyday.

Emily: I didn’t at first, but then I saw all the varieties of the clothes that we could wear. Before I started school I thought it would be like the schools on TV with the plaid skirts and white shirts. That scared me.

Karen: So you like khakis and polo shirts?

Emily: Yeah, sure.

Karen: It’s kind of how we have to live under God’s rules.

Emily: Are you trying to make little things into educational things again?

Karen: I like metaphors. Work with me here. You have to follow certain guidelines, but within those rules you can wear any color of shirt or style of khakis. And if we live by God’s rules, we can have freedom there too.

I’ve been thinking a lot about rules lately and how they govern our lives. Our first few years of homeschooling were delightful as the kids and I explored books and went on field trips and did our science experiments in the kitchen. As they’ve grown, though, so have the rules, and our lives seem more structured than ever before. It’s hard to see the freedom still available to us sometimes. It struck me that it’s the same dichotomy that exists in our Christian living. To those outside the church, we seem to be regimented, blindly following rules that don’t make sense, but we know better. One of the greatest gifts that Christ brings us is freedom, the freedom to truly know another person through marriage, the freedom to raise our children in faith and love, the freedom to believe in a God who is so much more than we can grasp. It’s hard to communicate that freedom to those who only see the outside of the church building. I think that’s why Jesus didn’t confine himself to the synagogue; he went where the people were and showed them the freedom they were missing. He wasn’t afraid to break the rules. We shouldn’t be either.

Karen: I notice that you always wear something to set yourself apart from the other kids, though, like bracelets or necklaces.

Emily: I like to be different and try new things.

Karen: Nothing wrong with that!