Redemption Moments
This morning I was thinking about a friend of mine who has just learned that she is expecting. The news comes one year after the devastating loss of miscarriage. As I was rejoicing for her, my mind traveled to some of my own moments of redemption.
Shortly after we were married, I became very sick. I had test after test for weeks. Multiple CT scans and xrays were centered on my abdomen, and I honestly doubted, after all of the radioactivity, that we would have children. I had sharp pain in one particular place in my abdomen for weeks. I will never, ever forget the day, a couple of years later when I was expecting our first child, when Henry kicked me in that same spot. I stopped what I was doing and sobbed. It was a redemption moment: God had taken one of the lowest points in my life and brought it full-circle. He had redeemed the broken place and brought it new life.
Next month will mark one year since my last redemption moment. Two years ago, we lost our third baby. We had barely discovered that we were expecting when I miscarried. We grieved that little child deeply. I remember so vividly walking through the halls of the hospital (past the labor and delivery ward) to have labs drawn to confirm that our precious child was gone. Almost a year later to the date, I walked down those same halls again. Cora needed labs drawn to check her bilirubin levels. She was less than a week old. As I carried her through those halls, I stopped again and choked back the tears. It was a redemption moment. God had brought us full circle and blessed us with a life I hadn't dared to hope for. He had redeemed that broken moment.
It's not to say that He always repays us for our losses. Neither is it to say that those things can replace what we've lost. Some friends of ours have just had a son this week. He was born after the devastating loss of their second child. He is in no way a replacement of the son they lost. But he is a picture of bringing beauty from the ashes.
It struck me, as I thought about all of this, that our God must be a God who loves redemption moments. Hannah wept and pleaded with God to give her a son in the temple, and then brought that very son to the same temple to dedicate him. Job, who lost everything but remained faithful through the pain, went on to have much more than he had had before. Peter denied Christ three times and was given three opportunities to proclaim that he loved Him. I think God must love those moments. I think He must understand the power of moments for us. They lift our spirits, strengthen our faith, and give us hope that He will continue to redeem our most broken places.
Today I celebrate redemption in my own life and in the lives of my friends, even as I wait for more redemptive moments. I can't wait to see the beauty He brings from the ashes of the past year in so many lives around me. He is reclaiming moments all the time, and yet it never ceases to amaze me when it happens!
Shortly after we were married, I became very sick. I had test after test for weeks. Multiple CT scans and xrays were centered on my abdomen, and I honestly doubted, after all of the radioactivity, that we would have children. I had sharp pain in one particular place in my abdomen for weeks. I will never, ever forget the day, a couple of years later when I was expecting our first child, when Henry kicked me in that same spot. I stopped what I was doing and sobbed. It was a redemption moment: God had taken one of the lowest points in my life and brought it full-circle. He had redeemed the broken place and brought it new life.
Next month will mark one year since my last redemption moment. Two years ago, we lost our third baby. We had barely discovered that we were expecting when I miscarried. We grieved that little child deeply. I remember so vividly walking through the halls of the hospital (past the labor and delivery ward) to have labs drawn to confirm that our precious child was gone. Almost a year later to the date, I walked down those same halls again. Cora needed labs drawn to check her bilirubin levels. She was less than a week old. As I carried her through those halls, I stopped again and choked back the tears. It was a redemption moment. God had brought us full circle and blessed us with a life I hadn't dared to hope for. He had redeemed that broken moment.
It's not to say that He always repays us for our losses. Neither is it to say that those things can replace what we've lost. Some friends of ours have just had a son this week. He was born after the devastating loss of their second child. He is in no way a replacement of the son they lost. But he is a picture of bringing beauty from the ashes.
It struck me, as I thought about all of this, that our God must be a God who loves redemption moments. Hannah wept and pleaded with God to give her a son in the temple, and then brought that very son to the same temple to dedicate him. Job, who lost everything but remained faithful through the pain, went on to have much more than he had had before. Peter denied Christ three times and was given three opportunities to proclaim that he loved Him. I think God must love those moments. I think He must understand the power of moments for us. They lift our spirits, strengthen our faith, and give us hope that He will continue to redeem our most broken places.
Today I celebrate redemption in my own life and in the lives of my friends, even as I wait for more redemptive moments. I can't wait to see the beauty He brings from the ashes of the past year in so many lives around me. He is reclaiming moments all the time, and yet it never ceases to amaze me when it happens!
