Welcome to Freedom

FREEDOM is our human right. We were created to be free, but along the way, things have happened to us, we have been miseducated or under-educated, downright lied to, or maybe we have made some bad decisions out of stubbornness, pride or maybe fear. All of these life experiences have led us away from our true identity and ultimately our freedom. We have become trapped in a prison of those things and end up viewing life through tainted windows.

kyhu was inspired to remind us where to look when we are in despair, in need of help, feeling down, depressed, lonely, lost, ready to give up. It is a symbol of hope. It reminds us that we're not alone and we have a way out, all we have to do is kyhu. Keeping my head up helped me find freedom, freedom from depression, persistent suicidal thoughts, insecurity, pessimism, despair and hopelessness which is my personal definition of depression... living life in a state of utter hopelessness.

In my darkest hour I remember so clearly lying on my bedroom floor crying out to someone I really didn't know. "God, if you don't do something about this, I will!" and I really meant it and He must have known because He answered in a way that I couldn't deny it was Him. You see, I had a book on my nightstand that my Aunt had given me, it sat there for an entire year collecting dust. It was actually a daily devotional, but I really wasn’t keen on Christianity or the Bible for that matter. I hated the hypocrisy and judgmental attitudes of Christians, and the Bible to me was a book written by men for men with their own agendas, but in that moment, it was like I heard a voice tell me, “pick up the book.” I was so desperate I was willing to do almost anything, so I picked it up and turned to the devotional for that day, and as I read it my hopelessness was replaced with hopefulness

. That very moment, the depression that I battled with for over 20 years was gone! As crazy as it sounds, it’s true. My desperate plea to be free from the torment of depression was answered, light broke through the darkness and I finally had hope again.

It has been 7 years now since those words from that book that I wanted nothing to do with healed that part of my broken soul. So, after YEARS of futility, searching, self-medicating, counseling, self-help books, and ultimately being admitted into a mental health facility for intensive outpatient therapy, it was gone, the depression and anxiety, in an instant was gone and replaced with hope and a future. The passage from that book came straight from the mouth of God in an answer to my prayer and it had been there for thousands of years, only I had wanted nothing to do with it. When I realized the truth and power those words had over depression, a hunger for more began to grow inside of me an unquenchable thirst for truth. I realized that I had been "searching for love in all the wrong places" (did you sing that? lol) But seriously when you have a moment like that with God and you realize that He is there and has been there all along just waiting for you to acknowledge Him and let Him in to help you, your life will never be the same!

That day I relinquished my will for His will, I gave Him all access to fix everything that had been broken in me because I was just exhausted trying to figure it all out on my own and getting nowhere fast.

I have not let my head down since. It has become an automatic response to any situation I have found myself in, and trust me, I have been through A LOT in these past 7 years. Situations that were designed to drag me back into the pit of depression. Yet I realized that they were simultaneously revealing my true character, some good, some bad, some ugly, but my natural response changed from hanging my head down in defeat to keeping my head up and focused on the place that my help comes from.

It's funny because our bodies are so naturally inclined to lift our heads up in times of trouble, have you ever noticed? We do it automatically without even thinking about it. If your drowning or choking, what do you do? You lift your head up and gasp for air. When your frustrated, what do you do? You throw your head back and might even say something like “Oh my GOD!!!!!!” When your kids are driving you insane, you tilt your head back (and hopefully count to 10). We do these things in automatic response to negative situations but probably have never stopped to think about it. But now more than ever we need stop and think about it. It's time we open our eyes and realize that keeping our heads up is not just something to say to someone when they're going through something, it's an action, it's a stance, it's where we begin to find help, hope and ultimately freedom.

Where there is hope we find freedom. Without hope we can't even imagine a future. Without imagination we can't dream. Without dream’s there’s no vision and a life without vision, imagination, dreams or hope is a depressing one. If we have no hope of a future, life is pointless. But if we begin to focus, not on our problems or limitations. If we begin to focus not on what we see in the moment, or the people around us. If we begin to focus our sight not on eye level but a little bit higher, not horizontally but vertically, to a focal point that our body somehow instinctively knows where to look, we will find hope, faith, freedom and a life worth living. The life we were born to live.

KYHU reminds us to KEEP OUR HEADS UP towards the only One who has ultimate control over EVERYTHING. It reminds us that we are ultimately powerless and although the thought may be scary, when we finally relinquish "false" control we actually find freedom. When we give up and give in, we release ourselves from false precepts and ideas about who we THINK we are and how much control we THINK we have and we allow the One who actually does have the control, the One who created us, to show us who we REALLY are, who we were created to be and what we were created to do. That is where we find true freedom.

So when I say kyhu , I’m saying, keep your head up, higher than your circumstances, higher than your self-sufficiency or your inadequacy, higher than your appearance, higher than the name brands you wear, higher than your job title, higher than your bank account, higher than the car you drive, higher than the negative words around you, higher than the fallible human attempts to fix things that can't be fixed by human hands, higher than the culture we live in.

Adapting to our enslaved culture will only drag us down to the level of immaturity that has gotten us nowhere but wanting. Focused on insignificant things, things that are eaten by moths and destroyed by rust, that bring about stress, depression & the exact opposite of security. But if you kyhu to the ONE who has ALL the answers and Who, despite what you may think, despite what you may have heard, despite the bad example SOME (not all, albeit many) who call themselves Christians have set, despite what you may have done, despite absolutely everything & anything, LOVES you with an unconditional love that is incomprehensible to the human mind. When you keep your head up to Him, He will be sure to lead you to freedom.

All you have to do is kyhu!