Redeem This
An extra hand never hurts, so when she offered to hold the tape, I slid the one-inch end over to her behind the bushes. Besides, she needed something to keep her mind busy while we prowled around.
I wondered, as I watched her scale a small pile of debris, if I could come to dread the smell of campfire — that scent that most often means I’m outdoors, with folks I love, and at least for the moment, without a care.
In college, I always resisted washing a campfire-steeped sweatshirt for days, just to hang onto the time a little longer, if only in my head and my nostrils.
She wonders when she’ll stop waking to that smell and remembering it wasn’t a dream.
We stood swallowed up in black, documenting what remained — and what did not — of much that a family held dear.
If we looked hard enough, we could make out the recliners. The tools. A new crib, not yet out of the box for a baby not yet out of the womb. A lifetime of Christmas decorations stored away. Just blackened skeletons, really. Pieces here and there that helped one identify what, just days ago, was.
And now, is not.
I offered empty words to her mother. The empty ones are often the only ones I have as we seek to quantify life in dollars. I considered the skeletons that now jigged and twirled on blackened tippy-toes in her thoughts, memories dancing in singed lace dresses, thoughts now as charred as the ash crushing beneath my boots with each step.
She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out her cell phone, bringing up the call log to check the time.
Yep, around 3:30 or so. That was the minute when my life changed.
I stood under beams weakened and sagging under the weight, half consumed by heat and flame. I could have taken my shots from the outside. The front wall was gone. The windows were blown out. I didn’t have to, but I had to go in.
I drew in deep, over and again, taking in the stinging smoke smell until my throat burned while I studied the intricate patterns the fire left on wood.
Soot and ash covered my pantlegs up to the knees. And I could feel smoke, now invisible, collecting on my hands. I’d grabbed my work gloves when I retrieved my tools. I thought of pulling them on. My hands felt funny.
But I left them hanging out of my back pocket, empty fingers bouncing uselessly with each step. There would be time enough to wash up later. For now, I’d do my work, and work to feel.
My hands, you know, they don’t feel enough. I don’t touch, or smell, or taste, or see quite deeply enough, quite often enough. Here in the dark, where the air even tasted black, I would feel it.
Of all the ways to lose.
Fire. Turn your back, and everything’s consumed.
I scanned black, then gray, then black again, and heard myself mutter, “Redeem this.“
How do You? How do You redeem charred ruins? How do You give back form and substance to that which disintegrates just to touch it? How do You regather the dust of this place, now blown clear to Winnipeg, and make it into something new?
Jesus, redeem this. I dare You.
Dare God to redeem? Something He already loves to do?
I turned to go back out to the drive, the weight of the loft over that bending beam starting unnerve me just a bit.
To my cynical, You can’t redeem something like this, He answered in kind.
Yesterday I carried the smell of campfire home with me. Only not really. Not campfire, anyway. It was in my clothes, on my hands, down my throat. I started down the hall to shower and change, then stopped.
No, I would not even be washing my hands just yet. (A wonder all its own.)
It started as the smell of destruction.
But it ended as the sweet scent of redemption.
I would wear that fragrance just a little longer into the day.
::
Photos
Top: Charred ruins
Bottom: Charred hope
(My very cross-eyed friend Jennifer invites us to see the Cross wherever we look — check out these cross-eyed images on Getting Down with Jesus‘ Facebook page — and I continue to look for the wonder in the wreckage of my daily work. Sometimes it just jumps out and smacks you.)
this is why we should never dismiss any part of our lives.
if you write this from that , it is a high calling.
quieted. and thankful.
love to you Lyla
2010/08/19 at 2:24 PM
Deb, that’s true. I must be careful not to dismiss those things that seem to have gone beyond.
2010/08/19 at 8:44 PM
I started reading this post, and this song came on my player. “Redeem this” indeed.
2010/08/19 at 2:52 PM
That… Amazing.
2010/08/19 at 8:44 PM
I was blessed by your words…a song that started playing in my head while reading was “Unredeemed”….
The scent of redemption…I LOVE that description!
2010/08/19 at 7:17 PM
Karen, that song is nearly perfect.
2010/08/19 at 8:45 PM
Beauty from ashes. It seems He specializes in redeeming what we deem impossible. This is so touching, so beautifully written Lyla.
2010/08/19 at 8:19 PM
thanks for this.
this is a wonderful post.
2010/08/19 at 8:36 PM
Linda and nAncY, thanks to you both.
2010/08/19 at 8:45 PM
Oh Lyla. This is one of your “best of.” Or maybe it’s just where I am right now. “Jesus, redeem this”. I was just thinking today that God doesn’t burn the bridges in my life, even if I thought I dismantled them. The old still crosses over into the new. I’m wondering right now how he’s going to redeem a piece of our past. Just say a prayer for me and my husband tomorrow. God’s doing something. We’re just not sure what.
2010/08/19 at 9:03 PM
Thanks for this great blog, Lyla. I am glad God is up to the task of redemption. I really need to remember this.
2010/08/20 at 12:06 AM
I need to think about this one some more…
Like Jennifer@Adam’s Rib mentioned, some bridges I thought were burned, things that were in the past are being shown to me that they really weren’t.
That charred cross… I have felt that I was all burned up and useless for a long while now. Yet… your picture spoke volumes to me – I think unconsciously I have been saying to God “Redeem this” just like you did…..
Oh this is going to take some processing – would you mind if I printed myself a picture of this cross to slide into my journal? I need the remembrance right now…. wish I could put it on my desktop as my background —-God redeems everything… How I thank Him for that!
God bless.
2010/08/20 at 10:53 AM
I am going to also write a quick post now, and send people over here to read this one… I have to. It is too good to just sit on myself and contemplate….
Others need to read it as well…
2010/08/20 at 11:04 AM
Jennifer, praying, yes. God’s got His ways of doing things. My mind is not yet well enough renewed to usually get it at all.
Crystal, hey, good to see you here. Thanks!
Heather, yes, print if it’s helpful to you, of course. And thanks for the link back. Always nice to have you stop by.
2010/08/20 at 11:17 AM
Just the words I needed to read today. Jesus, redeem this, broken, burned places that hurt so deeply. Thanks for the hope!
2010/08/20 at 2:38 PM
Oh, Lyla.
I. Cannot. Breathe.
2010/08/20 at 4:14 PM
Like Linda said, I was thinking “beauty from ashes.”
There is nothing but grief in ashes. But then, oh then, our Savior takes them in his hands and new life emerges from the old.
2010/08/20 at 4:18 PM
Incredible beauty, incredible love. Indeed He can and will redeem for His good purposes and His glory.
I’m hearing the song “Let the redeemed of the Lord, say so. Say so!!”
So glad Sandra Heska King lead me this way.
2010/08/20 at 4:24 PM
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Redeem this!…and He does…
LORD have Mercy…and He does…
Beautiful reminder Lyla, thank you,
GOD’s Peace to you,
Connie
2010/08/21 at 3:49 PM