I always thought that redeemable was a personal quality that someone had, like if they were a good enough person, they were redeemable by others. If they did enough good deeds, then it was okay if they slipped up every now and again. All of those good deeds that they did meant that it should be easy to forgive someone for things that they said or did that were not quite nice. As if good deeds entitle us to anything. What I’ve learned is that the word redeemable is made up of two words. Redeem and able, more on that in a minute. Here’s the truth. I’ve been going through a lot of emotional ups and mostly downs for a few months and I felt myself growing more and more angry. Every instance of anger was met with the ever-present quiet voice of my soul telling me I was okay, guiding me to create a response instead of reacting on that emotion. But the truth is every human cell in my body wanted to burn things to the ground. I wanted to be angry, I wanted people to hurt the way that I was hurting. And I ended up hurting someone I love, and in return I hurt myself more. My ever-present annoying soul assures me that I’m okay, it’s okay, which turned all my anger at the world inside of myself, because that is not who I want to be.
The conversation that I ended up having with myself went something like this; “life is pain, everything hurts. I question everything that I am. I don’t know who I am. I wish I never had to feel again. I know there’s a person inside of me who loves people. Am I just a manipulative angry person who is only defined by my past mistakes? Have I never done anything that makes me redeemable? I hurt, I hurt, I hurt! My heart hurts, my body hurts. I try so hard and if just feels like I will never be good enough for anyone. I don’t want life to be over I just want pain and fear and self-doubt to become a little quieter. They are so loud right now and no matter how hard I try or how much I give to others they remind me that I am not redeemable. How am I redeemable” Redeem able. Who makes me able? Able? Who defines redeemable? Redeem; ‘Do something that compensates for poor past performance or behavior; atone or make amends for”. Able; ‘Having the freedom or opportunity to do something’.”
After I looked up those definitions my human sighed in defeat, not defeat per se, but I must admit that it initially felt like that. It was acknowledgment, acknowledgement that I was giving to myself and the first step to working towards healing. And my human became quiet and listened, with less resistance.
So here I am now, realizing that redeemable isn’t something that others give to me, but it is something I can give to myself by doing so, I can inspire it in others. I have the freedom and opportunity to atone or make amends for my poor past behavior. And so, I apologized. What happens next is not up to me, one of the biggest side affects of relationships is that two independent people get to decide each for themselves. The only thing I can control is to continue to make myself redeem-able.
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