Redeemed.

To save. To save from sins. To deliver. To restore the honor or worth of. To liberate by payment of a ransom. To rescue. To atone for. To clear, release from debt or blame. Of a person, granted redemption or salvation.

A word so full of meaning and yet, the week went by and no ideas came. Last night, while working on this I thought maybe I should photograph the little part where Phil and I meet and get married. Talk about how I think it was totally God orchestrating everything and how I feel like it is our responsibility to break the cycles of our toxic families and so the picture would represent that we are redeemed. I took several photos and kept thinking, I don’t know that this is true. I don’t know that our entire family tree that branches out from our union will look different. I mean, I sure hope it will. But how can I know?

So I stopped that line of thinking because I didn’t want to be presumptuous.

I stared to my right, as I often do when I’m perplexed.

I studied this. The Visual Prayer I prayed for mom while she was dying in the ICU. We were in the waiting room. Everyone else sleeping in uncomfortable chairs. I was manic, couldn’t sleep, needed to pray this prayer.  I worked on it for a couple of hours.

The security guard kept passing by, staring. Trying to figure out what a grown woman was doing cutting and ripping and gluing with such frenzy.

Conquer. I believed she could conquer the lymphoma.

Same with miracles. I believed.

Have Faith. Seek Me. I did.

And we all know how it ended.

Yes, I’m still grieving…how could I be over it already? But maybe my infinite need to understand is pushing me to dig into places I might have ignored. This quest for an emotionally healthy life kind of centers around who I am in my family and I am my mother and I am my father.

But

I am also redeemed by a man who has adopted me into his family. Therefore, I must take that into consideration.

And maybe the real miracle is that with the redemption, the things here are temporary. Gone in a flash. And the faith comes in believing that which is not seen.

Mom is healed. Not in the way I expected. But she’s redeemed. And for all I don’t understand about the mysteries of Christ, I do understand one thing…He has redeemed us.

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