Rescued and speechless

listen:
the Almost- "dirty and left out"





Redemption is different from reconciliation or forgiveness even.  Redemption is a building up, whereas forgiveness is most often a plugging the hole in the dam and hoping it will hold.  We often get caught up in what others think and what they will think if we do something or make a certain statement or action.  Yet it is not the act of forgiving, although this is nothing short of an amazing feat in itself, but the redemption that comes later, where we find the truest beauty in the frail human heart.
  Take for example the story of the prodigal son.  He probably doesn't feel that great telling his father all the things that had happened and especially not in the fact that he had already come to the conclusion (in his mind) that he would be lucky to sleep and work with the servants.  Yet we all know that his fate is sealed in his Father's love, the complete and unconditional love that accepts with open arms and leads to redemption.  I cannot imagine somebody being received in such a way and actually having the attitude or sickness to go back to the evil they had vacated.
  All this to say, although there are great amounts of pain in this life, when it comes to redemption, when it comes to light breaking through, when it comes to relationships being restored, it is all possible.  But we have to see it through.  I am so very thankful that redemption is a reality.  That we can bust out the other side, not just better, but wiser and more hopeful.
   Redemption can mean deliverance; but it can also mean rescue.  I cannot even begin to count the ways I have been redeemed and rescued over my relatively short life and this is available to all.  So why doesn't everyone feel redeemed?  If its available to everyone, what does it matter?

Because not everyone has been given the chance, and not everyone has been redeemed.  There are many situations in my own life where I have not felt redemption or even forgiveness, yet I can still find peace somewhere in between the Hopes and the brokenness.  Even though the redemption may never come, I take great comfort in knowing it exists, and no matter how messed up the situation is, deliverance is always possible.

Would that we would all find redemption, that when we offer "deliverance" and "atonement" that we would follow our words with a quiet prayer or a silent praise.

This is life; and redemption is a reality we all need,   
and,
I; rather WE, are never too far gone.