What Does This Mean?

If you remember your Luther's Small Catechism at all, hopefully the title gave you a grin.
As a writer, I have a fondness for words and their meanings. I also love metaphors, double meanings, contradictions, analogies, and anything of that sort.
Think about the word "miss." In one sense, it relates to avoiding, failing, or escaping something that is present, an appointment, a pedestrian, a ball. But the dictionary provides a second meaning with a separate entry, indicating the distinction is more significant than a variant or a slight alteration. The second meaning of "miss" is "disadvantage or regret resulting from loss."
In this case we miss something precisely because it is not, cannot, and will not be present. Big feeling for such a small word, huh?
And what about "free?" I heard someone talking the other day about how we are free. But to be free is not a "please take one" coupon kind of experience. To be free is expensive. You were bought at a great price (1st Corinthians 6:20). Freedom is fought for every day in the physical world. The value of our freedom is even more powerfully reflected in the knowledge that God considers your soul priceless.