A New Look For Me!!

I know what I really need more than anything is my own personal makeover... you know the full body massage, hair style, mani/pedi, liposuction, tanning salon, get-this-baby-out-of-my-uterus kind of makeover? But since all that is either way too expensive, dangerous, or just plain impossible - I'm settling for the new blog makeover look. My awesome and far too generous friend Faith gifted me with this through the very talented and now somewhat famous, Danielle. It is supposedly a retirement gift... very funny considering I'm not quite yet (nor am I sure when I really ever will be), retired... but also because retirement - in itself - is a great enough gift for me. Nevertheless, I can't thank you enough Faith - for the face lift. (Incidentally, I'm both super excited and completely terrified about the future makeover I plan to let you give me this winter... when you kick my butt with cardio and weights. :)

The new title of my blog is a phrase from one of my favorite Jars of Clay songs. I discovered it following one of the many challenging times in my life - several years ago while I was living in Reno... It was one of those spiritual concepts that you wake up one day and realize is actually true. If you've been a Christian for a long time like me, you know what I'm talking about... those things that you grow up "believing" but never really comprehending. The things you say are true because the bible told you so... but you never really thought of them within the context of your own life.

The definition of redemption, according to the great Webster, is to buy back; to free from what distresses or harms; to change for the better; to atone for. I wasn't really wanting the title to have a depressing undertone... but as the song says -

"I was looking at redemption. It was hidden in the landscape... of loss, and love, and fire and rain. I never would have come this way...".

While most of us wouldn't choose to walk through the circumstances that have brought us the greatest pain throughout life... few can deny that those are the very situations that have made us stronger... hopefully drawn us closer to our Heavenly Father... and maybe even caused us to realize that hidden in those dark moments, we were experiencing what it meant to be redeemed. A promise of hope for the future... reunion... grace... eternal peace. No matter how hot the fire... or how hard the rain falls - redemption can be our landscape - if only we accept it.

I wish I could say that the struggles I was going through when I first heard this song - are things I no longer struggle with. I wish I could say that the pain or Ricky's loss is gone, and only peace is left behind. I wish I could say that the fires I've walked through are things of the past - but the truth is very few are. What I can say, is that the same One who beat me over the head with the truth of my redemption several years ago, continues to do it today. And He will never give up. The reassurance will always be there... redemption... will always be there. It is in the landscape... hidden at times and plain as day at others. And it will be there... with the loss, love, fire and rain that is yet to come.