Redemption
It’s been 4 years since I wrote the essay “Sin” on this blog after my enthusiastic first read of Brenda Marie Davies’ On Her Knees: Memoir of a Prayerful Jezabel. I was not expecting my theology to continue to evolve or to develop such strong convictions that would lead me down the path of a serious conversion some short years later. But still, I have been returning to the piece and wondering if my feelings about it had changed. By 2021, I had such a romantic view of the original sin, and I had, in many ways, fallen in love with my own sins and shortcomings that ultimately, had finally resulted in what was shaping up to be an alright, beautiful life. I could see a light. I could see the workings of God. But I was missing part of the story…
At the end of that year, I was celebrating my daughter’s first birthday, a new blossoming relationship with my now husband, and a sense of peace and comfort was prevailing over our lives. But it was short-lived.
Over those first few years, I had started to suffer from an extreme, nagging fear of death. I developed an incurable anxiety about my children being harmed. Geographically distant from my loved ones, I started to feel abandoned. Hated, even. I isolated further. I began to ruminate obsessively about these things. I spent a lot of time in and out of doctors’ offices trying to medicate myself out of the worst of these anxious spirals. And it worked. But the cost was losing that small glimpse at divinity and quieting the already small voice that was begging me to turn around and accept the Truth.
Fast forward to now. We’re nearing the end of 2025. I’ve sobered up. I’ve shed the last of my innocence in realizing I’ll have to answer my children’s questions about the most heinous and worst kinds of evil in the world. At a loss for any wisdom within myself, I started seeking out ancient theology and church teachings in pursuit of objectivity that would give us some hope in the midst of the spiritual battlefield we’re contending with. In September, I enrolled myself in a local parish’s OCIA class, I scheduled a date to validate my marriage in the church, and I gradually opened up my mind and heart to the possibility that 1) I’d been wrong and 2) there was a God that actually does love us enough to give us visible signs of grace in our lives via the holy sacraments.
When I first read On Her Knees, Davies offered such a delicate and gentle lens to view Eve as redeemed and wholly loved by her creator, which is in many ways how we’re supposed to look on ourselves and others; loved, whole, divine, worthy beings, despite their flaws… but the piece of the story I was missing all this time was the “Why?” – Why do we have this story in the first place? Why do we live in a fallen world? Why do people hurt one another? Why would God allow any of this to occur? – For all of my life, I just figured that if I were to accept a Christian theology, the story of “The Fall” would always be a frustrating, contentious mythology, instead of what it truly is: the beginning of the greatest love story ever told.
The missing puzzle pieces gradually fell into place with my baby catechesis… the story that I’d forsaken has now come to life in the genius of the liturgical calendar.
Now, in the last days of Advent, we await the Incarnation and I cannot help but reflect on those first glorious days of postpartum motherhood with my own children as visions of the Nativity fill my home. The imperfection of it. The discomfort and uncertainty that Mary and Joseph must have felt leading up to that moment. The surrender that followed. It is no wonder why the divine feels so close this time of year – He cries out for us to hold Him. The same God that chose His birth in a barn instead of a palace. The God that wasn’t afraid to show us the power and glory of being small, helpless, and young…
This is truly the beginning. It is for me, anyway.
My path is fresh and completely uncertain, but I’m on a journey towards a peacefulness I’ve yet to experience and have craved for a lifetime.
This will be really interesting, I hope!
