Popinjay–Redeemed

*A note before you read this. After doing an audit of my blog in 2022, I have decided to leave content that speaks to the Christian I was at the time this was written. I no longer identify as Christian (and haven’t for a very long time.) I chose to leave these posts because it is who I was then and it is important to me to be honest and true with every iteration and evolution of self that I experience. I may decide to add comments to the end of posts like this as well

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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