Redemption

I’m battling. Every day is a battle to stand in my faith. Every day is hand to hand combat and most days I’m too exhausted to rise from the ashes. In the days of old when someone was in deep mourning they would shave their head, dress in sackcloth and imbue cover themselves with dust and ash. I read a story recently of a father who lost his precious daughter. He shaved his head in mourning and let his beard grow. I’ve seriously contemplated shaving my head… there’s just something so right about it, to be shorn, to be obviously different. Apparently the nearly two foot tattoo that stretches from my hip to my chest isn’t enough. The bracelets and necklace and orange shoes and shirts aren’t enough. I could paint myself orange and it wouldn’t be enough. There is no enough. There is no symbol of mourning bold enough to express the loss, the pain, the ache, the confusion. But don’t be surprised if I turn up with some crazy looking something going on. Maybe I will dye my locks orange…

Recently I’ve been painting. My creativity tends to explode in times of distress, writing, painting, building… all ways my pain is expressed. I’ve been so restless. As the pain builds and the questions swirl I swing wildly between a complete inability to move, a paralysis soaked in tears, to hours of constant activity. Yesterday I spent 5 hours hunched over the same painting carefully tracing each line, utterly lost in my own head. It was here I listened to Nehemiah. Beautiful Nehemiah.

Today as I run circles in my head and process and process and process what I’ve heard something occurs to me.

The last weeks have been the hardest in terms of keeping my eyes on Jesus. I’ve been so confused, so angry, so wounded as reality sinks in. I don’t understand. For an “intellectual” this may be the worst part of grief. I’m an academic. I work things out. I figure things out. If things don’t make sense I research and dig and design experiments until they do… and they always do. I’m a scientist by training. God designed the natural world in beautiful order. It makes sense.

Now I’m up against the worst horror of my life and no amount of digging or thinking or tearing myself apart will make it make sense.

So what keeps me bound to my Yahweh? I’ve been asking myself the same question. Why am I still here, at Your feet when You have done this horror to me? Why do I still cry out to You, reach for You, long for You? Why can’t I turn away?

In Nehemiah the people assembled to remember. They assembled to remember Israel’s past. I guarantee Hollywood’s got nothing on the Old Testament. There is more scandal, pain, rebellion and sin in the history of our ancestors than any playwright could imagine.

Yet, there is also more love, redemption, compassion and longing of the Almighty for His chosen people. The more I dig into our spiritual heritage the more I am struck by the voice of Yahweh calling to His children “Come back! Come back!”

There are passages in Jeremiah that make me weep with the ache I hear in my Father’s voice. “What fault did you find in me that you would leave me?”

So, there is my answer. Redemption.

I once was lost but now I’m found.

I remember my pit.

I remember who I was. I shudder to remember. I want to forget. I want to sweep her under the biggest heaviest prettiest rug I can find and pretend she never existed. I hate her…  but the memory of her is a gift. Today, tomorrow… the memory of who I was without Him saves me.

I don’t understand. I don’t understand!! But I know that I know that I know that HE changed me and that I never but never want to be her again.

I am redeemed.