Last night I had a dream about redemption. It was a powerful dream that woke me up by a thunderous chorus shouting, “I am redeemed!” I shouted the loudest of all. This morning I’ve been contemplating the word ‘redeemed.’ Etymologically, it infers a “buying back, releasing, ransoming.” It stems from re or ‘back’ and emere—to take or procure. It can also mean ‘making amends for’ or ‘making good.’ So I ask myself—and you: What have we been doing all our lives that is now complete? What have we ‘made good’ that we can now release? What can we be delivered from? What if, for a long time, we were doing something or being with someone because of a long-ago promise we made to ourselves or to them? And once the deed is complete, we are redeemed? What if now we can be delivered from a soul promise we don’t even remember making? What if our lives are a series of redemptions … of promises made and promises kept? What if our past lives can be redeemed so that our present lives can be more fully lived and expressed in new and growing ways? Think how our ideas about our life purpose would change! We may have many—not just one or even two! Our life purpose at five years old is different than it is at fifteen or at seventy-five years old. And what of love? A first love may be a redemption—an experience we can afterward ‘take back.’ So may be a marriage that ends in divorce. Or an illness. Look at something in your life that fills you with ennui. That exhausts you. That makes you question your happiness and enthusiasm. Perhaps it’s because you have redeemed the promise you made toward it. You are released. It’s time to redeem your life – and to redeem yourself. You are now free to go.
