The face of redemption, as I remember it from childhood, looked like an alter call at church, a dunk and a splash in a baptismal, and another round of "Just As I Am." It was a singular act of contrition that brought one to his or her knees before God and a cast of onlookers catapulting the newly "saved" into a set up for eternity. I'm not casting shadows on that face, but when I think of redemption now, I view it in a much broader sense due to decades of shifting light.
A few years ago, I read a book called "The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck. It may have been that literature that began a shift in my perspective about what the work of life is. The work of life, the "kingdom of God," the reason for living is a roller coaster of mini-series with episodes of disturbances in the universe, the kitchen, the living room, a restaurant, the airport, the work place, marriage, childhood, adolescence, adulthood. I could go on but it's getting close to bedtime. It sometimes seems as if one unfortunate event is only over because another shoves it out of the way. To those who take the common path, these events are the woes and sorrows of life, the miseries we somehow deserve, or the "rain" falling "on the just and the unjust," but today when I think about it all, I call them acts of redemption. It's not a singular event at all. It's an eternal process that escalates exponentially when the pain begins to drain.
But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight." John 9: 10-11.
Pray for Sylvia Flores, my daughter's mother-in-law.
A few years ago, I read a book called "The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck. It may have been that literature that began a shift in my perspective about what the work of life is. The work of life, the "kingdom of God," the reason for living is a roller coaster of mini-series with episodes of disturbances in the universe, the kitchen, the living room, a restaurant, the airport, the work place, marriage, childhood, adolescence, adulthood. I could go on but it's getting close to bedtime. It sometimes seems as if one unfortunate event is only over because another shoves it out of the way. To those who take the common path, these events are the woes and sorrows of life, the miseries we somehow deserve, or the "rain" falling "on the just and the unjust," but today when I think about it all, I call them acts of redemption. It's not a singular event at all. It's an eternal process that escalates exponentially when the pain begins to drain.
But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight." John 9: 10-11.
Peace. Love, Linda
Pray for Sylvia Flores, my daughter's mother-in-law.
Tomorrow she goes in to surgery to get a spot removed from her lung.
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