The world is more about redemption than anything else. It’s more than good things always coming your way; it’s what you do when they aren’t. It’s not so much about the knight slaying the dragon—guy gets the girl—happily, sappily ever after—but what in the world you do when the dragon tears your arm off and burns the village to the ground, and you find out your damsel in distress just eloped with your arch nemesis (probably because he’s got more pizazz…)
What do you do? How do you get up, brush off the dirt, bandage the wounds and continue on with the journey?
I’ve worked with families of a wide range of social classes through my jobs as a camp counselor in several different states. And I’ve seen the thirst for redemption in both upper-class, wealthy families, who seem to have the perfect lives, and also in struggling, poverty-stricken homes, where everyone knows that nothing is gonna be alright.
The possibility of redemption lives literally everywhere because so does brokenness.
There is not one inch of earthen soil that is not cracked or marred, whether it’s the blade of grass that is frayed, or the shoe of the homeless man who stepped on it, or the young woman driving past who taught her kids to never talk to filth like him.
But God seems to find far more value in redeeming things that are broken, rather than simply starting with everything flawless from the start. And that makes me think that there just might be some pretty serious hope for people like you and me in this universe.
I don’t know where the bruises and broken bones in your life are. We tend to hide those under our sleeves. Even me. But sometimes you just got to stop and look around you, at the beautiful world that is ours and think about what it’s all about. Just breathe in and breathe out. And know that you are loved by someone bigger than yourself. That you are alive and beautiful and worth it all. Just…rest. And believe that things are going to be okay, that a better world is breaking through, even now. That you were loved before you existed and that you will never cease to exist for that very same reason.
gracecoat 