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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Link up!
This is a beautiful, beautiful post…and for the record, if I had read it before I “favorited” it, I still DEFINITELY would have “favorited” it. 😉
I love how you make these collages.. they are each so unique and lovely and always beautiful.
The words here that you’ve prayed for your mom are so very powerful.. I pray that over time God will bring healing and meaning to your loss that you can’t see when the loss is fresh. God is God yesterday, and today, and forever!!