It was a sunny Saturday in April 2003 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The Carolina-blue sky seemed to kiss the wavy waters as the gentle wind embraced the beach. After enjoying the beach for a while with my 16-year old daughter and husband, one by one, they ventured off to find a spot on the beach away from the water.

I stood close to the water barely wetting my feet and totally mesmerized by God's awesome creation. The voices of the beach-goers gradually faded as the sounds of the wind, the waves, and the seagulls emerged.

Suddenly, my attention was diverted as I noticed how my son and nephew were totally immersed in the moment. Challenging the sand that seemed to capture their feet with every enormous wave, they went from only getting wet from the legs down, to being totally drenched from head to toe. Forgetting about the hunger that occupied their every thought moments ago, they were simply enjoying the moment to be free -- to be free to be who they were.

As I stood there watching and smiling, my smiled turned to laughter as my eyes filled with tears at the unexpected experience of enjoying the same spellbound freedom that they were enjoying. I thought about life, and the choice that I have to be free. Then I thought about how countless of individuals are held captive in daily routines, never taking one moment out of the day to just be - to just be free.

After a while, knowing that this moment must end, I motioned the boys to come on to leave. They yelled, "Just one more time!" "Okay," I said, as I stood full of laughter and tears in my eyes, experiencing my moment of freedom -- as they freely enjoyed their moment without limitations. "One more time," they yelled repeatedly. "Okay, just one more time, " I repeatedly yelled back, until that moment finally did end.

My son and nephew will never realize how their expression of freedom evoked a renewed freedom within me in that moment, on that fine April day. The freedom of knowing that at any time I choose, I can be free to just be me -- just as I did that day. I will never let that moment, that experience, or that choice go.

What an experience it is to be free - to be free to just be me, without self-limitations, or the limitations of others.

What actions must you take to experience your true freedom today?

At any moment that you choose, you too can be free -- to just be -- who you are.

Think about it, experience it, live it, and never let it go!

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Copyright 2003 by Audrina Jones Bunton. REPRINTING THIS ARTICLE: Permission is granted to reproduce or distribute this article only in its entirety and provided copyright is acknowledged. You can find other articles to choose from at http://www.purposefully-living.com/mailing%20list.htm

Motivational Speaker, Audrina Jones Bunton was born the seventh of eight children in her household in Pinehurst, North Carolina into a loving and committed Christian home. As she has 2 children, over 40 nieces and nephews and great- nieces and nephews, it is not unusual to find her under the same roof with many of her maternal five-generation family on weekends and on holidays. In her youth, she fondly recalls traveling throughout the U.S. with her family, as her parents ministered from state to state year after year