Redemption

So, in fairness to my dental practice (which I have left unnamed), I feel the need to write a follow-up entry of sorts to say that my relationship with them has been redeemed. The much less than perfect experience that I blogged about earlier was sort of erased yesterday by what is probably the most perfect visit I’ve ever had to a dentist office. Everything went exactly as planned (even better than I had it planned in my mind) and I feel like my confidence in dentistry is restored, for now at least.

As I walked into my dentist’s office yesterday morning, I was on the phone with a new friend; and I asked this new friend to pray during my appointment time since my last one had been so traumatic. She then said to me, “Let’s just pray right now.” And she did. And everything went perfectly. My friend said something else to me during that same conversation, something that I haven’t been able to get off of my mind. I had actually called to check on her, so she thanked me for remembering her and for taking the time to call. And she then said something along the lines of, “I really do appreciate you; I realize you’ve had to suffer through much to get to be the type of person you are today.” This statement I’ve since thought over a lot–and I’ve wondered what I would be like today had I not experienced things like my father’s suicide, my kidney failure, the cancer, the bone marrow transplant, the other sufferings that I still can’t talk about publicly.

All of this made me think of The Christmas Carol and how Ebenezer Scrooge gets to see multiple “what if” realities play out right in front him as the ghosts from his past, present, and future overwhelm him. We all have such ghosts, and we don’t get the chance in “real” life that Scrooge gets. We don’t get to see the person we would have been had the tragedies we’ve endured never happened. We only get to trust that the pain will help to transform us into something better than we were before. Or we get to doubt and fear and become consumed altogether with other negative emotions to the point that we’re tempted to completely give up on life down here, which would create a whole new tragedy. I feel like I’ve done a lot of both of these.

As all of these thoughts competed in my head, the word “redemption” jumped in the middle of them. I then did a Google search for the actual definition, which I know quite well but felt a need to remind myself of today. “The action of being saved or being saved from sin, error, or evil” was one definition; and the other was “the action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment, or clearing a debt.” I have always thought of redemption as being bought back or perhaps brought back, with the “for something better” being understood. And I’m realizing now that there are pockets of redemption all over my life, some small by the world’s standards and others’ huge by any standard, that were sewn on by the threads of the tears I wept during the darkest times. And, on the garment of my life, it’s in those pockets that I’m given a tiny glimpse of the person God’s always desired for me to be, the person who’s spent most of her life feeling as if she’s unraveling , the person who is being put back together now by the very things that she thought would tear her apart irreparably and forever. That’s redemption.

While I’m far from being a theologian, I feel like I have to say again what I hope I say clearly in my memoir–I don’t believe for one second of even my worst day that God chose pain and suffering as a method to transform us. We made that choice, and I believe that God simply makes the best out of the mess that we’ve created since God first created us. He’s altogether beautiful and altogether lovely and he can bring unfathomable beauty and love out of absolutely anything. That’s who and how God is. And that’s redemption.