Trust the truth that lives deep in you to find freedom – Fairfield Daily Republic

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson

In the United States, we celebrate our freedom. It is one of our most fundamental values.

When we take time to reflect on the freedom that we have, hopefully all of us can find reasons to be grateful.

The freedom that we embrace is a work in progress. We are still on the road to growing into the vision of freedom that our founding fathers gave us.

Growing into a vision is good. A vision is meant to guide us to a better place. Growing into a vision of freedom requires work, dedication and vigilance.

A vision of equality and freedom for all is a vision well worth the responsibilities it brings.

As we celebrate our freedom it is important to remember that freedom is not just political it is also very personal.

Its the freedom to think, to discover, to know, to understand and to speak our truth.It is freedom to love, to dream, to work and to create.

We need to be vigilant about how we allow external pressures to steal away our personal freedom. When we are not careful, we can allow circumstances to interfere with our ability to think, to love and to feel the joy that comes from deep within our souls.

We can live in a society that offers freedom, but still be bound by internal chains that hold us down.

Throughout history there have been amazing people true heroes who were able to demonstrate freedom of spirit even while they were held captive, sometimes under unthinkable conditions.

Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Tchicaya Missamou are just a few. We can allow them to inspire us to be greater than our circumstances to live beyond the apparent limits that life seems to have dealt us.

When we are tempted to let an old wound or grudge take away our freedom to love, we can remember our personal vision of freedom and follow the example of these heroes instead.

When we are tempted to allow sound bites and Twitter feeds to decide what we think and how we react, we can choose to remember the power of our minds and our freedom to think independently instead.

In each circumstance, we can allow the truth that lives deep within us to set us free.

The Rev. Dalia Adams is the pastor of Unity Church of the Valley in Vacaville. She can be reached through http://www.unityvacaville.net.

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Trust the truth that lives deep in you to find freedom - Fairfield Daily Republic