Redeeming Everything

Tonight was a night of worship for my church as the worship team is preparing to record their first live album next month. All of the songs are original writings and arrangements, but I have heard most of them several times now. Some more than others. One of the songs tonight has three words that stood out to me and has stuck with me for the last couple hours. I have heard this line and sung this line many times over the last few weeks, but tonight was different. I love when God speaks to me that way! He often uses a familiar song or a familiar passage of scripture to speak to me in a way I've never heard the words before. 

The line I heard tonight simply said "You redeemed everything."  To make this really basic in explanation, I looked up the definition of redeem. To put it simply, redeemed means "to buy or pay off; clear by payment." I will not insult your intelligence by defining "everything." In the context of saying Jesus redeemed everything, it means He paid off everything for me. Seriously stop and think about that for a minute. That sin you have been working to overcome? He already paid it. The striving to be a better person so you can be "worthy" enough? He already covered that too. 

Another way of defining redeem is "to recover by payment or other satisfaction." Jesus redeemed us by making the payment for us through His sacrifice. So that we do not have to endure hell for eternity, He was willing to go there for us instead. For three days He battled satan. And He won. That battle you are fighting? He's already won it. That healing you are praying for? He's already healed it. He did it all in order to recover a relationship with YOU!

More personally, when I think of all God has redeemed in my life, I tend to focus on the major highlights (or sometimes low lights). Yet, it is not only the big things He has redeemed. Yes, He has brought an amazing healing and restoration to my relationship with my dad. Yes, He has been my faithful provision for over a year now (longer really, but my trust has been there fully for this last year). Yes, He is constantly transforming me more and more into the woman He originally created me to be. But even more so, He has redeemed me in the little things. He has truly redeemed everything. Yes...every thing. All the things I do not even remember doing that should have required some SERIOUS payment. He redeemed it.

He already redeemed it for you too. Are you willing to let Him?

Crushing Flowers

One morning last week I walked Olivia to school. In order to get to her school we have to walk through an empty field. Although there is no sidewalk, there is a worn path from people walking this same route. We were walking slightly off the path and on the grass. Scattered in the grass were little yellow flowers, or weeds. Olivia looks down and quickly jumps from the grass back onto the path. As she is doing so, she explains we are crushing the flowers! I questioned her on the accuracy of calling them flowers and she proceeded to tell me how beautiful they were and if we stepped on them they would die. 

For the last week I have been thinking about this conversation. Perhaps this is an example of why Christ said we should all become like little children. How many things do we view in life as "weeds." Yet, there is innate beauty within them. Perhaps we don't even realize we treat flowers as though they were weeds. I witnessed an example of this just one day after my conversation with Olivia.

My neighbor is a single dad of two. His children are a girl, about 14, and a boy, about 10. They were exiting their home on the way to school at the same time I was walking Olivia to her bus stop. On this morning, things at their house were apparently not going well. From what I could overhear, the argument of the moment was which child was going to ride in the front seat of the car. Most parents of more than one child has been a part of this battle. However, the father was not entertained with their behavior. The father screamed at the children informing them he was not in the mood for "this crap." (I'm quoting, yet editing his exact wording). I then heard him yell to the daughter "You just shut up! You don't have an opinion in this! You don't have a voice!"

Upon hearing this, I immediately flashed back to my 15 year old self and the verbal abuse I experienced from my mom's boyfriend. This dad was making the same type of crushing statements I heard throughout my teenage years. My instinct was to immediately insert myself into the conversation. My only thought at the moment was "what kind of an example of a man are you being to your daughter?" When she gets older and a man is abusing her, will you be surprised? How will she ever demand to be respected as the beautiful flower she is if her daddy treats her like a weed?

Thankfully my adult self met the Daddy who created me. I'm learning to listen to His words instead of the recording I heard as a teenager. I'm learning I'm not a weed. I'm more like the flower that has just come through a storm. While my stem may be bent and I look beaten up a little, I become a beautiful flower with her head held high again when in the presence of the Son.