"I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that God, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Deuteronomy 30:19

Obituary: 32 year old female died from chronic heart condition, a broken heart. She is survived by her 11 year old son whose life will never be the same.

That's how the obituary will read for the most recent victim. As I sit here and try to make sense out of why she died it hurts my heart even more. I replayed the last few months of her life and tried to figure out why she didn't make different choices. Surely she was given warning signs that this was coming yet she still didn't yield.

Someone mentioned to me that once we are saved we are already free. That is not entirely true. There are many people who accept Christ but never accept the freedom that comes with salvation. Christ suffered a terrible death to set the world free from sin. But it is up to us to be set free from the bondage of iniquity. Iniquity is the reason for the sin, the thing that made us sin in the first place. How many of us consciously wake up one morning and decide today I am going to commit a sin, hurt many people including myself, my children or maybe even kill someone.

While there are some people out there who may think that way deliberately, it doesn't count for the majority of us. I have sinned and done things that hurt other people, altered their lives. I didn't do it deliberately, but it was due to my bondage of iniquity. I really did not realize that I was hurting them until after I began to deal with my iniquity. But being set free from this bondage was not an easy task. It took years of therapy, prayer, tears and pain. I had to face all the things that crippled me with fear most of my life. However once I was faced with the reality that I was going to lose my life if I didn't make a change, then I had to do it, because I wanted to live.

My pastor preached a sermon entitled "I'm Trying to Find Myself" where he explained that Satan's plot is to break your heart because if he can break your heart you can lose who you are. Your heart holds the keys to your life, your drive, passion and will to survive. Therefore if Satan can succeed at breaking your heart by keeping love from you, telling you lies that make you believe you are not worthy of more than what you are accepting now, steal your self-esteem and your will to fight, then you will never walk in that freedom that Jesus died for.

The past couple of weeks have been very emotional for me as I have had to face the truth that not everyone will choose life. I had to say goodbye to a true friend and deal with the fact that another was suicidal. But I also made some choices to sever some relationships with people I truly love because continuing the relationships would not be healthy for me. I cannot allow others to pull me down to where they are anymore. You have to realize that you cannot save people, you can pray for them, you can support them, and you can love them. But the choice to live is theirs, just like it's ours. So today I choose life again and will continue to do so. If you don't choose life for yourself no one else will. It's all about the choices you make; will you make a healthy choice today?

Learn more about this author, Athena Thomas.
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