Sunday mornings are my favorite part of my week. Saturday mornings are great, too, but Sunday mornings feel like they’re just for me. Particularly in the summer time.

Saturdays are all about staying in bed for as long as possible. Snuggling, watching videos on our iPhones until they run out of battery juice. And then we talk for another hour about what we are going to do for breakfast.

Yesterday, we did that for so long that we finally had to change the subject to what are we going to do for lunch. And, of course, by then you’re much to famished to do any cooking yourself so we went to Mr. B’s (our absolute new favorite place). I had a bowl of chili (in July) and peach cobbler. It was pretty great. We went to the Farmer’s Market, too, and it was a great day for it. Of course we got there too late to catch any tomatoes or zucchini but we nabbed up a jar of Sand Hill Plum jelly to smear on the homemade bread we were going to make.

Sunday mornings, though, are all about me taking care of me. I drink a big glass of water and come write in my journal or I’ll sit on the steps with a cup of green tea. Or I’ll stand in that incredible morning light in the kitchen that I am confident can heal just about anything.

The other night I was talking to Kat about how I guilt-free stopped going to church on Sunday mornings. It was when I ‘d moved to McPherson and, since I’d just come from a very church-every-day sort of an environment, I did feel an obligation to find a church. One Sunday morning in spring, though, after months of attending and never feeling anything but utterly uncomfortable, I took a day off. I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat out on my steps. I felt the sun on my back and I let it warm me. I heard so many birds talking back and forth and I went walking around the yard to try to find out which ones were making which sounds. I picked flowers around the yard and just walked. I felt my muscles in my legs moving and I felt grateful. I felt the sun on my face and I felt safe. I felt freedom–which was something that my heart hadn’t experienced in, truly, decades.

And so I stopped feeling so obligated to Church. And I opened myself up to the opportunity to feel that love in other places. That love and safety and true freedom that, for years, I’d only heard people talk about. Make no mistake–I have no bitterness or cynicism in my heart for the way that I was raised or for the years of church that I attended. I have freedom and freedom comes from living a life and it has no room for bitterness.

My story to freedom is a long one and it’s complicated but then again it’s also really simple. I felt God in the sun on my back. I stopped holding onto things that were weighing me down. And it works for me.