Redemption - Experiencing the Lower Case "R"

God is still in the business of healing and deliverance. Every day. Forgiveness, salvation and redemption are the things of His kingdom. No miracle is too big or too small.

I think I am finally beginning to understand redemption. I get capital “R” Redemption – Jesus dying for me on the cross – but small “r” redemption has never really made sense to me. When people spoke of it, I suppose I didn’t really believe them. Or Him. Okay, so something good came after something bad. But the bad thing still happened. I thought of the times I took my children to get their vaccines. A few painful jabs in the arm, with that unmistakable smell of hospital… They were too young to understand the protective benefit they were receiving, so how did we try to ease the pain? The public health nurse gave them a sticker. A sticker?! There is no way any of my kids would tell you that any sticker, even a Transformers one, was worth the experience of a sanitizer-smelling stranger stabbing them in the arm with a needle, their own mom an accomplice. But that was my view of redemption. A Dora the Explorer Band Aid stuck on a broken heart.

I remember reading about a couple whose infant had died. The father said that “God redeemed their loss.” What on earth could that mean? It sounded like the kind of ridiculous believer-speak of fundamental televangelists that freaked me out. God could bless them with a hundred other children, but they could never replace the unique life that was lost. At best they might be a distraction from the ache. But redemption? No way.

It’s not like when your car gets stolen, and your insurance pays for a new one. It’s not like replacing your old phone, or a sock with a hole in it. Cars, phones and socks can be replaced. Not children. I always hated the end of Job. (Well, I didn’t really like any of it, but the end was the worst.) “The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters.” Job 41.12-13. Yeah, so he had twice as many animals as before. Great. But ten of his children died! So God gave him ten new ones? The new kids are indeed a blessing, but how on God’s not-always-so-green earth does that make up for the loss of ten beloved lives? How is this redemption?

But wait, don’t I believe in the God who can do “infinitely more than we can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3.20)? That means I need to really trust that He can do things that I think are absolutely impossible. Like redemption.

Yesterday I experienced, for the first time that I recognized, the miracle of small “r” redemption. And to me it feels no less remarkable than capital “R” Redemption. (And resurrection is incredibly remarkable to me.) In a situation that has caused pain and anger, fear and shame for over twenty years, God worked a miracle. Out of that suffering He blessed me with compassion, forgiveness, and healing. He didn’t take the awful thing that happened away, but He took away its power, its ugliness. This is not like  I dropped my ice cream cone so God gave me a new one… The memory is not gone, but it is changed. He delivered me from the bondage I was stuck in. I think that is redemption. Yes, there have been many tears, but they became cleansing. Yes, I was clean, finally clean and whole after so many years of feeling dirty and broken.

I was never able to figure out how to put this burden down in my own strength, but Jesus stretched out His arms and took the burden from me, and now I feel light, like I can’t even remember what it felt like to carry it for so long. And now I sound like one of those over-the-top over-zealous TV preachers, but how can I not speak the truth? It all sounds crazy when we don’t believe, but when you experience it for yourself there is nothing crazy about it… it’s crazy how wonderful it is, but not that kind of weird crazy  that is just so, well, weird. And hard to trust. I know it sounds crazy. So did the Apostle Paul: “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (I Corinthians 1.18) I know that power, and I know it is God.

God heals bodies and hearts and minds and memories. I think I used to believe that was true for others, but maybe not for me. I knew Jesus could redeem me from my sins, but it never occurred to me that he could redeem me from someone else’s sins. But He has. I have this beautiful treasure chest that He gave me, but I kept putting all kinds of junk in it – a beautiful and incredible vessel filled with pain and ugliness, sin and rot. And I forgot my Father had the key! He opened the chest, took out all the crap, and filled it with Himself. God delights in surprising me, lavishing His love on me, showing me that I am indeed His beloved daughter.

I still don’t like the story of Job much. But I now see that the redemption Job received from God was not donkeys or camels or children. It was an overwhelming revelation of how much God truly loved Him, and knowing, really deeply knowing the depths of His love for us is a miracle. (And I have to trust that those children are with God now… that God is not bound by my limited sense of justice or heaven or anything.)

I used to think of redemption in economic terms – you take something that is inherently worthless, like a gift card, merely a piece of plastic, and trade it for something of value, something that is worth something to you. But God’s redemption is far beyond that. He doesn’t just redeem worthless things, He redeems awful things, painful things, evil things.

It sounds crazy to a lot of you, I know, I can hardly believe it myself. God re-routed my neural pathways, rewrote my operating code, took out my heart of stone and gave me a heart of flesh. He pruned off my rotten branches, and promises to tenderly feed and water me with His Body and His Word. None of these analogies really work, because this is a case of what is impossible for man is possible with God. (Luke 18.27) 

Healing. Forgiveness. Salvation. Deliverance. Redemption.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” John 14.26-27

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Isaiah 43.1b

Look at Me!

My two close-encounters with the courts both happened in the summer of 1995. I was 21 years old. The first was because of an incident while living in Nelson, B.C. One winter Sunday night after a nice supper, my boyfriend, roommate and I decided to get dressed up. We didn’t have much money then, but we scrounged around for our thrift store best and decided to hit the town. Problem was, where do you go in a small town on a Sunday night? We had a friend who worked at the Subway downtown so we decided we would head down there to should him our fancy-ish clothes.

It was cold and pretty icy on the street. I was shivering in my little black dress and slipping around in my girly little shoes, when a car screeches to a stop beside us and a guy jumps out. He has crazy eyes. Crazy. He grabs my boyfriend and starts punching him. My roommate keeps walking, hoping to draw us away. More guys pile out of the car, but they just stand there watching. I start screaming, “Get off him! Stop it! Stop hitting him!” I scream at his friends, but they just shrug their shoulders and say there’s nothing they can do to stop him – we should just get out of there. So I keep yelling at this idiot to stop, angry that he won’t even turn around and look at me. So I shout “Look at me!! Look at me you coward! Look me in the eye!!” What’s he gonna do to a buck-o-five in a little black dress?

Crack. He punched me in the head. Twice. Then I fell down. Even though that bastard turned around to hit me, he didn’t look at me. And he didn’t say a word. Someone pulled me out of the way, then things seemed to break up. I don’t really remember how things happened next, but eventually he took off in the car and the three of us turned around and went home to put ice on our bruises.

The next day I had two black eyes. Maybe more purplish. I called the doctor in case I had a concussion or eye damage. I explained to the receptionist what happened, and she asked if he was in the house with me. What? I don’t even know who he is!   (There ended my naivety about domestic violence.) While we were waiting to go to the police station to place charges against this stranger, I was flipping through the local paper. When I opened to the sports section his face leapt out at me. Here, the day after he attacked me, he was featured in a two-page spread as a local hockey hero. While I read quotes about what a superstar and great guy he was, I nursed my bruises and wished I could tell the world what a loser he was, attacking a defenseless girl. I wanted to tell everyone what a coward he was, hitting someone half his size who he couldn’t even look in the eye.

I didn’t feel very hopeful when I entered the Nelson Police Station. Hockey pictures covered the wall. The officers listened to my statement and I told them I only knew who he was because of the paper. Turns out he had done the same thing to a few other folks that night- apparently he was in an alcohol fuelled rage - but no one else was pressing charges. I wanted him to pay – he had been drafted by the Chicago Wolves in the AHL, and I hoped an assault charge would keep him from being able to cross the border to play. I don’t know if it would have. I wanted to interfere with his career so he would have to acknowledge me, what he did. Be sorry? I don’t know. Accept responsibility.

I didn’t hear anything more about the case until I had moved up to Dawson City, Yukon for the summer. I got a message to call someone in Nelson – Justice Department, cop, lawyer, I can’t remember. They told me I needed to be in court in two days. I explained that I was way up north, hours from a major airport, and I that I hated to fly. I made arrangements to take time off work, take the bus to southern B.C., and testify against my attacker. The next day I got a call back saying there would be no trial. He paid a fine instead. I forget now if it was $200 or $400. Small potatoes for a hockey star. Small price to pay for randomly venting your anger on a stranger. Or is it?

I haven’t thought much about “J.R.” over the years, but getting the jury summons today made me think of him. So I googled him. He did go on to the AHL – and just about any other league besides the NHL, even in Scotland and France. He was a not-quite fourth-liner goon who changed teams more than he changed his socks. He highlighted in off-season hockey fight clubs like “Battle of the Hockey Enforcers” and “Hockey Gladiators” - title fights for cash and whatever glory you can scrape back up off the ice. He was, in a word, a loser. And that makes me feel a little bit better.

But he still hit me, while somehow managing to ignore the fact that I was a person, a soul.  When I do think of him I figure he must be a broken man – lost, angry, alone. And if I saw him today, yes, I would make him look me in the eye. I would tell him how awful what he did was.  And I would feel angry. And I would feel bitter. And I would feel self-righteous. But I would pray. Then I would look him in the eye and tell him I forgive him. Even if I didn’t really feel like it I would somehow trust God, and forgive him.

So I guess I did just that.

And I'll probably have to do it again. And again. And again.