Friday, September 24, 2010

Redemption

Yesterday I shared part of my story over at Thin Places. It’s not often that I allow myself to travel back to that time when wounds were fresh and raw. Healing has a wonderful way of dulling the pain of the past.

It’s fascinating to me how we view things differently in different seasons of our lives. When I was a fifteen year old girl my parents’ divorce shattered my world as I knew it. From as early as Eden we’ve learn to cope by placing blame. And that’s exactly what I did. I blamed my mom.

Now, as a grown woman, and a mom myself, I look at the circumstances of my childhood through different lenses. I see my mom differently now than I did then.

Redemption is a curious thing. True redemption causes a change of heart. I can look back at my own life thankful that I’m not the same person today that I was decades, years, or even months ago. I’ve grown, evolved, changed. I’ve been redeemed. I’ve been forgiven. I’ve been loved.

And through my redemption I am free to forgive. I am free to let go. I am free to accept the truth that just as I have grown and evolved, so has my mom and also my relationship with her.

I’m overwhelmed by the healing God has done in both of our hearts. I’m so grateful that God has restored our relationship. But before healing came I had to let go of the pain of the past.

I was thinking this morning about how we love to hold tightly to our hurt. We grip it in white knuckles. We hold our hurts up to God asking questions that begin with “Why?”

The problem with holding tightly to pain is that it hinders us from being embraced.

I’ve learned that God very rarely answers the Whys. But He always comforts His child. And in His arms the Whys slip away. It’s simply enough to be loved.

But we must first let go. We can’t hold on to our hurts and God.

I remember when my little boy was around 3. He had an obsession with trucks. This particular afternoon he had tripped and the truck he was hugging busted his lip. He came to me with tears streaming down his face wanting me to hold him. But I couldn’t get my arms around him. There were too many trucks between us. Eventually his longing for me superseded his need for his trucks and one by one he handed them to me. I took them from him then gathered him in my arms and soothed his anxious heart. We sat and rocked and snuggled until his cries turned to sweet peace.

God stands ready and able to do the same for us. His arms are wide open waiting for us to run to him for healing. The choice is ours.

We can hold on to the truck.

Or we can hold on to God.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Keri, I just wanted to let you know how much this post meant to me. I know you don't really know me very well at all, but I got to your blog here because Mark went all post-happy on his Facebook and gave you some advertising. :)

    I've been working through and dealing with some of those old hurts that you talked about lately, and how we hold on to them so tightly. But I've never really thought about how holding onto that stuff is keeping me from God's embrace, and I'll never truly find peace until I can drop my trucks.

    Thanks for letting God speak through your words.

    Jonathan Hubel

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