Breaking Free: A Celebration of Healthy Love and Boundaries

Breaking Free: A Celebration of Healthy Love and Boundaries

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." — Galatians 5:1

The Chains We Never Chose

Have you ever found yourself tangled up in everyone else's needs, losing your own heartbeat in the process? Perhaps you've worn chains that were never yours to keep—carrying burdens, managing emotions, and solving problems that belonged to someone else. You poured yourself out until you were empty, believing that this was what love required.

Our new song, "Celebration Song," tells a story many of us know intimately: the journey from codependency to freedom, from losing ourselves to finding ourselves firmly rooted in the Father's love. It's a story as old as Scripture itself—the story of captives set free, of identity restored, of discovering that the yoke of Jesus is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30).

The False Gospel of Self-Erasure

Somewhere along the way, many of us absorbed a distorted message about Christian love. We came to believe that being "Christ-like" meant disappearing—that sacrifice always meant self-erasure, that serving others required the abandonment of self.

Henri Nouwen identified this struggle in his profound work on identity: "Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection... Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the 'Beloved.'"

When we reject ourselves in the name of loving others, we're not operating from a place of wholeness—we're operating from a wound. And wounded love, no matter how well-intentioned, cannot sustain itself or truly serve another.

The Apostle Paul understood this tension. He wrote to the Galatians, "Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ" (Galatians 1:10). Paul knew that there was a fundamental difference between God-centered service and people-pleasing codependency.

Finding Our Name in the Father's Sight

The transformation begins when we step out of the shadows and remember whose we are. Before we can love others well, we must know ourselves as beloved.

In Ephesians 2:10, Paul declares: "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Notice the order: we are His workmanship first, then we do the works He prepared. Being precedes doing. Identity precedes activity.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his masterwork Life Together, warned against what he called "wish dreams" in community—the tendency to project our own needs and expectations onto others, bending ourselves and them into shapes that serve our anxieties rather than God's purposes. He wrote: "Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive."

When we find our name again in the Father's sight—when we remember that we are called, chosen, and dearly loved (Colossians 3:12)—we can finally lay down the exhausting work of earning approval and start the joyful work of living freely.

Love That's Full, Not Empty

"I once believed love meant losing me / Pouring out 'til I was empty / But love is full when rooted true / It's me and God—then me and you."

Jesus gave us the order of love explicitly: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39).

Notice the progression: God first, then neighbor as yourself. Not instead of yourself. Not more than yourself. As yourself.

Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, in their groundbreaking work on boundaries, explain: "When we begin to set boundaries with people we love, a really hard thing happens: they hurt. They may feel a hole where you used to plug up their aloneness, their disorganization, or their financial irresponsibility. Whatever it is, they will feel a loss. If you love them, this will be difficult for you to watch. But when you are dealing with someone who is hurting, remember that your boundaries are both necessary for you and helpful for them."

Boundaries aren't walls—they're the property lines that allow two whole people to connect authentically. They're how we learn to say yes from a place of freedom rather than fear, and no from a place of peace rather than guilt.

The Freedom of "Yes" and "No"

"Now my yes is mine and my no is too / And peace feels like something new."

James 5:12 instructs us: "Let your 'Yes' be yes, and your 'No,' no." In a culture of codependency, this simple directive becomes revolutionary. When we've spent years shaping our responses to manage others' emotions, to keep the peace at any cost, to avoid disapproval, the freedom to speak a clear yes or no feels like emerging from prison into sunlight.

Jesus modeled this perfectly. He withdrew from the crowds to pray (Luke 5:16). He said no to demands on His time and energy (Mark 1:38). He set boundaries with His own family (Mark 3:31-35). And yet no one has ever loved more fully, more freely, or more transformatively.

As Dallas Willard observed in The Divine Conspiracy: "Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action." The same could be said of boundaries: Boundaries are not opposed to love; they are opposed to control. Control is rooted in fear. Boundaries are rooted in faith.

Walking in the Light

"Now I'm walking in the light / Boundaries drawn and held with love, not fight / I don't disappear to prove I care / I show up whole—I show up there."

Second Corinthians 3:17 declares: "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." This freedom isn't abstract or ethereal—it's deeply practical. It's the freedom to be fully present without being consumed. To give generously without giving ourselves away. To serve powerfully without serving from depletion.

Richard Rohr speaks of the "true self" versus the "false self"—the person we actually are in God versus the person we've constructed to survive, to please, to perform. He writes: "The false self is always fragile. It's based on accomplishment and achievement, titles and possessions. The true self is given, received, and enjoyed. It doesn't have to prove itself, and so it neither inflates nor deflates itself."

When we show up whole, we show up as our true selves—not the version of us that has been edited and curated to fit someone else's expectations, but the person God actually created and is continually redeeming.

The Sound of the Found Being Found

"We're the ones who came back to life / Stepped out of the dark and opened our eyes / This is the sound of the found being found / This is freedom dancing 'round."

There's a particular kind of joy that belongs to those who have been set free. It's not the naive happiness of someone who has never been bound—it's the robust, resilient joy of someone who knows what captivity felt like and can therefore truly appreciate liberation.

In Luke 15, Jesus tells three parables about things that were lost and then found: a sheep, a coin, and a son. In each story, the finding is followed by celebration. "There is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents" (Luke 15:10).

But here's the beautiful mystery: repentance isn't just turning away from obvious sins. It's also turning away from the distorted ways we've learned to relate, to love, to be. It's turning away from the false gospel of self-erasure and turning toward the true gospel of transformation—where we are being changed "from one degree of glory to another" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

This is the sound of people waking up to their belovedness. This is freedom dancing around.

An Invitation to the Dance

"So we dance—hey!—we sing—hey! / Lift your hands—hey!—let freedom ring / No more weight on our souls, we're free to belong / This is our celebration song!"

The Psalms are full of this kind of embodied, exuberant praise. "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song" (Psalm 98:4). "Let them praise his name with dancing" (Psalm 149:3). This isn't merely emotional expression—it's physical testimony. Our bodies declare what our souls are experiencing: liberation.

C.S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory: "It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea."

For too many of us, codependency has been our mud pie—a sad substitute for the infinite joy of knowing ourselves as beloved and living from that secure place. The celebration isn't just that we're free from codependency—it's that we're free for authentic love, genuine service, and joyful community.

Come Join the Celebration

First John 4:18 tells us: "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

When we love from a place of fear—fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of not being enough—we cannot love freely. But when we know ourselves held by perfect love, we can finally release the death grip we've had on relationships, outcomes, and our own worth.

This song is for everyone who has been on this journey. It's for those who are still untangling themselves from unhealthy patterns. It's for those who are learning, perhaps for the first time, what it means to show up whole. It's for communities committed to practicing healthy, boundaried, Christ-centered love together.

Because you were never meant to disappear in order to be loved. You were meant to be transformed, to be made whole, to be set free.

"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:36).

Come join the celebration.