By Jessica Brodie
Have you ever met anyone who’s absolutely perfect? Neither have I!
And yet every day, we’re surrounded by people we perceive have it all together. We think perhaps they have a perfect relationship with their kids or their spouse, that they were raised well with all the right morals and values that parents should teach their kids, that they didn’t make the sort of debilitating, gut-wrenching mistakes that still haunt them all these years later. Somehow they just came out of the womb as good people who always stayed on the right track, period, the end.
The truth is that no matter what we think the other people around us have done or not done, they’re not perfect—and neither are we. And usually, they don’t really have their lives together, even if we think they do.
The truth is that most people in this world are just trying their hardest to get through today and stay on the right path, whatever that looks like.
I used to play the comparison game. Maybe you did too, or maybe you’re still doing it. It’s an awful game, isn’t it? The way it works that we stack ourselves up against the people around us—either in real life or those we see on social media—and think we are deficient. We think we fall short.
Maybe that’s why I love redemption stories so much—because they turn the comparison game upside down and make it as silly, pointless, and illogical as it is.
It’s incredibly heartening and inspiring to hear about people who were broken and lost, and somehow they met Jesus and turned their lives around. There’s a musical artist who goes by the name of Jelly Roll who used to be in prison, and now he brings countless people into a saving relationship with Jesus through his music. I’ve heard stories of former gang members who are now pastors, of alcoholics and drug addicts and prostitutes who have done a 180 and now live their lives entirely for God’s glory.
I’m a redemption story myself. My story isn’t nearly as dramatic—I was just a selfish, dysfunctional individual who lived my life for my wishes and concerns. Then one day I woke up, realized I had it all wrong, and made Jesus Christ the Lord of my life. And today all I want to do is help others find the joy I have. It’s a joy we all can experience.
My novel, The Memory Garden, deals with exactly this. The protagonist is a woman who has lost it all—her job, her fiancé, everything she held dear. She wakes up in the hospital at the beginning of the story after having swallowed a bottle of pills, and she realizes she’s at rock bottom. She moves to her granny‘s hometown to start over, and there she meets a little boy, whose faith draws her into a relationship with Jesus, and she ends up helping to save him from his earthly battles, too. It’s part of a larger series called the Dahlia Series, and book two releases this fall. That one is called Tangled Roots, and it’s about the broken relationship between a brother and sister. The brother has just been released from prison, and he needs to stay with her as a condition of his parole. He’s become a genuine follower of Christ during his incarceration, but she doesn’t believe that for a minute. It’s a story of authentic faith and what it looks like to truly be a new creation in Christ.
Do you notice a theme here? Transformation through Christ. Redemption!
We are all redemption stories, if you think about it. Consider the words of the apostle Paul in his letter to the early church in Corinth:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV).
When we make Jesus the Lord of our lives, when we follow him and believe in him and understand that he is our savior, we become new creations. That doesn’t mean we don’t still mess up sometimes, still have doubts, still waver or fall. But it does mean we get to walk in the joyful understanding that our past doesn’t define us anymore. Jesus paid the price of our sins, and we are liberated from the old self. In fact, as Paul said, that old self is dead and gone. We are new creations. We are born again.
That’s what Jesus himself told Nicodemus in John 3:
“Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:5-7).
Today, consider what it means to truly be a new creation in Christ, to live the redemption story that you are, that I am, that we all are. How can sharing our story draw other people to the Lord?
So forget the masks and the façade of the seemingly perfect people around you who look like they have it all together. Remember that only in Christ are we truly redeemed and transformed. And set your feet upon the path of the Lord, walking with him in the ultimate redemption story.
Amen and amen.
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