The doors we open and close each day

decide the lives we live.

—Flora Whittemore

arrived. Three brawny men and one scrawny teen were

dutifully and, for the most part, carefully unloading all of

my life’s belongings. Despite the final destination

“kitchen” or “girl’s bedroom” scrawled on the outside of

boxes, I still had to point the men to the appropriate

room where each box belonged. At the end of a very

long day, I entered my new house to be welcomed by

stack upon stack of boxes.

15

their contents came from the brief descriptor written

on the contents line. What lay ahead of me was the hard

work of tackling each box and unpacking the contents so that

they would be useable in this new house I longed to call

home. For the most part, I was looking forward to the

process. I had not been in touch with these treasures for several

months. They had been in storage while we relocated

across the continent and then waited for our house to become

our own. These boxes represented my life, the places I’d lived

and visited, and the people I had come to love. These boxes

were full of me, and I wanted to move from the constraint of

suitcase existence to being at home with my stuff.

Unpacking always seems to bring surprises. As I peeled

away the manila packing paper, I discovered the candle holder

my best friend gave me on the last birthday we celebrated together.

The opportunity to hold it seemed to bring our hearts

together as I remembered the love and joy in her eyes when

she gave it to me six months earlier. I also remembered the

love and sadness in her eyes as I drove away for the last time.

A few of my tears moistened the packing paper in that box.

The next box produced a picture of my mom—someone I

never knew very well. As I looked at her picture, attributes

came to mind, but I was assaulted by the fact that what I

know about her has in large part come from what others have

told me. This secondhand knowledge of the woman who gave

birth to me and loved me dearly as a girl has never seemed

sufficient. In the deep part of my heart, I wondered what her

Full Redemption

16

thoughts and feelings would have been today if she were unpacking

these boxes with me.

At the back of the dining room I found a rather nondescript

box that piqued my curiosity. Offhand I couldn’t recollect

what was in it. As I opened it and lifted the packing paper,

a flood of remorse washed over me. I carefully removed

each piece of broken pottery. I knew what this was—or at

least what it had been. About 15 years earlier it had been a

beautiful statue my husband and I purchased on a mission trip

to Haiti. I still recall the weathered vender we purchased it

from, the stench of the street market, and the poverty of her

squalor. My mind quickly flits from the moment of the purchase

to the moment I discovered its demise. That was four

moves ago. Each time I come across this box I wish I had taken

the time at the last unpacking to put the pieces back together

so I could enjoy its beauty. Instead, I put aside this desire

in favor of the urgent and close up the box again. Maybe

in this home I will take the time to work on it. Maybe I’ll deal

with this bit of history after another move. For now though,

the place on my shelf reserved for it remains empty.

The next box held a surprise as well. The inexperienced

packer had obviously loaded up this box. As I worked my way

down through it, each stratum revealed another shelf from my

sewing closet. Unfortunately, no packing paper had been used

to separate the items. At the top were books; beneath that

were patterns, followed by material samples and sewing supplies,

and finally my sewing machine, which was unceremoniously

dumped at the bottom of the large cardboard box.

Strewn throughout all of this were the pins and needles that

Full Redemption

17

had spilled from the container, leaving extremely sharp objects

scattered throughout. My emotions ranged from frustration

to anger as I closed the box with an exclamation related

to the packer’s incompetence. The mess in this box could be

blamed on someone else. Unfortunately, I was the one who

would have to untangle the mess if I was ever going to use

those items again.

The process of unpacking has great similarities to the relationships

of our lives. If each relationship had its own box,

complete with a brief descriptor on the contents line, we

would have quite a stack of them in each room in the home of

our heart. We would find boxes labeled father, mother, sister,

brother, best friend, estranged friend, husband, ex-husband,

old boyfriend, children, boss, and so on. We might even have

much history we have with the person and how much of our

life story is connected to him or her. If we were to unpack

each relational box, we would find some memories that would

make us smile, filling us with memories of joy and thankfulness.

The contents of some boxes might make us cry as we recall

hurtful experiences. We might be repelled or disheartened

at the thought of revisiting others. Our response might

be to wrap up the mess and place it back in the box to be

dealt with later. Some relationships are full of hurts or injustices

collected through lack of forgiveness. We should have

dealt with them long ago, but over the years we have instead

added to and hoarded the collection.

Full Redemption

18

We attempt to compartmentalize our relationships. In so

doing, we deny the fluidity of ourselves within our network.

We fool ourselves into thinking that life would be easier if we

could keep each relationship neatly confined to its own box.

But just as the moving boxes must all be unpacked and the

contents arranged in the new home to be of use, so we must

unpack our relational boxes. We must take an honest look at

each relationship to see the effect it has had and continues to

have on who we are and how we relate. We are an accumulation

of all past events and relationships as well as the present

circumstances in which we find ourselves. All of these people

contribute to the pages of our life’s story.

Of greatest consequence is whether or not we allow God

to flow into our other relationships. Too often we attempt to

limit God to a delegated box. We may be willing to give Him a

few minutes in the morning and a quick prayer before lunch,

but He is then neatly packed away until a need arises and we

desire His usefulness. As we are willing to allow God to help

us unpack all of our boxes, He is able to help us sort through

the memories, joys, and hurts found in these boxes. Christ is

with us, carrying us through tough relationships that seem to

cause more pain than happiness. He is showering us with His

blessings when we engage in healthy relationships that reflect

the Trinity. As we allow Him to become our unpacking partner,

the Holy Spirit uses every aspect of these relationships to

shape us to be more like Christ. In doing this we will come to

relate to Him and others in a way that brings Him glory.

Full Redemption

19

In order for this transformation to occur, we must face

our story with honesty and authenticity, becoming broken by

any sin in our lives. It is only the degree to which I am willing

to be broken and allow God to steer this process that lifechanging

healing and transformation will occur. Due to fear,

shame, or independence, we refuse to allow God to join us in

the unpacking of these relational boxes. This blocks the flow

of God’s power in our lives. We must humble ourselves and

recognize our desperate need for God to permeate each of

our relationships, giving Him the central place in the unpacking.

Without Him we are simply reorganizing our stuff, and

no true change occurs.

The wound of losing my mother at a young age continues

to heal as I acknowledge to both God and myself the pain that

loss represents in this part of my story. The first step has been

to admit the range of feelings I encounter in my journey of

grief. I recall attempting to buy a Mother’s Day card for my

mother-in-law only six weeks after the death of my own mother.

I had to leave the card shop because of my intense heartache.

Every card I read seemed to express the perfect sentiment

for the mother I had lost.

I remember holding my baby daughter and crying as I realized

that my mother would never hold the granddaughter who

bore her name. I had to be willing to acknowledge the pain and

be broken by my attempts to fix myself apart from God before I

could experience the progressive healing He offered. My understanding

of the words in Ps. 147:3, written in present tense,

Full Redemption

20

continues to evolve as the healing progresses. “He heals the

brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

find another layer of memories that have been stuffed away in

it. Six years after my mother’s death the Holy Spirit impressed

upon my heart that I needed to take seriously the directive in

Eph. 5:20, “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything.”

At first I felt horrified that God was asking me to be

thankful for my mom’s premature illness and death. Then, His

Spirit gently showed me that in His request for me to be

His love and comfort in this situation. He wanted me to get

my eyes off the pain and to recognize all the incredible ways

He has used, and will continue to use, this quagmire of loss

and hurt. He was tenderly calling me to trust Him to take care

of me. He simply wanted me to become aware of how He was

at work in the middle of the ongoing loss.

As I relinquished my need to make sense of the chaos I

was feeling and placed my loss in His hands, He was able to

take that part of my story and bring glory to himself, turning it

around so that it became a benefit to me.

I began to thank God for the strength of character and the

competencies that were developed in me because of the need

to take care of myself and the family when Mom drifted into

the abyss of Alzheimer’s while I was just entering my teens.

He showed me the myriad of women He had brought into my

life who fed me emotionally and spiritually. These were

women who had become a mother to the motherless. God has

Full Redemption

21

brought tremendous good out of a situation that was neither

normal nor good.

By being thankful to God the Father for everything, I am

works to your advantage and to God’s glory.” Each time God

helps me dig further into a box, unpacking the hurts and joys

associated with it, I experience His tenderness, patience, and

love in a deeper way. It is to my advantage to allow God to be

my unpacking partner. I am benefited by experiencing God in

that box. God gets the glory because His faithfulness and

grace are greater than my need. The outcome is that my faith

in His goodness grows.

This process of acknowledging and working through my

boxes is not for the end purpose of relieving my pain. God’s

greater purpose is not to make me feel better. Jesus Christ did

not die on the cross so that my pain could be relieved. So you

may be asking, what’s the point of unpacking these boxes if it’s

not going to make life easier or happier?

I believe that each box holds the potential of either moving

us toward God or turning us away from Him. If we choose

to turn away from Him, we turn away from the only relationship

that can satisfy the deepest longings of our soul. If we are

turning to other people or things to satisfy this God-shaped

need, we will be left feeling unsatisfied and deficient.

The quality of our relationships is a direct result of the extent

to which we put God at the center. We must first recognize

that there is a battle within us to be either self-focused, going it

Full Redemption

22

alone, or to become God-focused. We will choose to do the unpacking

alone without God’s involvement, or we will choose to

relinquish our illusion of control and accept God’s invitation and

allow Him to take our stories and change their ongoing effect.

When Christ went to the cross, died, and rose again, He

became our Redeemer. His sacrifice paid the full price of our

sins. (See Rom. 6:23.) This exchange means that once and for

all our sins are paid for. Christ has paid the full price.

God is glorified when we, His fully redeemed children,

make Him Lord of our lives and not just our Savior. This happens

as we allow Him access and lordship over more and

more of our hearts and lives.

To continue the box analogy, we allow Him to work

through our boxes with us and to take the things that He finds

and turn them around so they have the opposite of their intended

effect.

An amazing example of this is in the life of Joseph as told

in the Book of Genesis. Many bad things happened to Joseph.

His heart could have been hardened and his life destroyed.

Instead, he chose a close relationship with God that changed

the likely negative outcome. His heart was turned toward God

and an entire people were saved. Joseph summed it up by saying

to his brothers “You intended to harm me, but God intended

it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the

saving of many lives” (50:20).

Another example is the apostle Paul. Writing from his

prison cell to the church in Philippi, he considers his imprisonment

and says, “I want you to know . . . that what has hap-

Full Redemption

23

pened to me has really served to advance the gospel” (Phil.

has had the opposite of its intended effect.”

Whether our boxes, either in part or in whole, contain

things that have been imposed upon us by others, as in the

cases of Joseph and Paul, or are self-imposed by the choices

we have made, we experience healing when we allow God to

help us sort through these boxes. Giving Him the opportunity

to use what was meant for evil and to reclaim it for His glory

and our advantage, we realize the ongoing effect of Christ’s

one-time redemption. Have you allowed God to take the

things that have happened in your past and turn them fully

around so that they are now benefiting your life, furthering

the gospel, and bringing God glory?

God wants to buy back the time that was lost to the former

boyfriend who used us and left us feeling bad about ourselves

or the lost innocence caused by sexual abuse. He wants

to restore the lost intimacy with our husband caused by the

anger and selfishness we coddle. God wants to replace the

gifts that we squandered or hoarded by being so full of pride

that there was no longer any glory going to God. (See Joel

2:25.) God desires to reclaim every relationship and every

area of our lives, both past and present. Redeeming our stories

means that God wants to turn them around. He is not going

to change the story. The past is what it is. But God does

desire to release us from the imprisoning effect of the past so

that our stories will have the opposite of their intended effect.

Full Redemption

24

As we respond to God’s gentle wooing to bring our boxes

to Him and allow Him to unpack them with us, we allow the

Holy Spirit access to the deepest places of our hearts. As He

carefully and tenderly unwraps the unmentionables, He does

not belittle or reject us. Instead, He takes those hurts and

says, “I have already used my blood to buy back and recover

these wounds. I have purchased your freedom from their

painful effect in your life. My desire is not that you will just

feel better; I want your pain and wounds to be exchanged for

the peace and joy that I offer.”

All too often we deal with our wounds only to a certain

point. We experience acute pain in a relationship so we confront,

we sort of forgive, we practice self-help, and we may

even allow God to start the healing, but we often stop the

process before we come to the point of fully realizing the

abundant life that God has offered us through the ongoing

power of His redemption. (See Eph. 1:7-8.) We do just

enough to relieve the pressure. When the situation is no longer

critical, we move on with life.

Most of us own weed whackers; high-powered machines

that chop the tops off of weeds. The garden looks nice for a

short period of time, but very soon the weeds start to grow

tops again because the roots were left untouched. Just as in

the garden, the weeds in our life must be pulled and fully

dealt with so that the ground can be reclaimed and the full effect

of our redemption can be experienced. If we try to make

our story look nice by cutting off the tops, the ugliness still has

root in our lives, and the roots grow stronger—though unnoticed.

Only the Holy Spirit can do the deep subsurface work

where the roots are truly dealt with.

Full Redemption

25

In Ps. 51, David is confronted with the part of his story

that includes adultery and murder. For the first time, David

sees his behavior from God’s viewpoint. By the end of the

Psalm, David comes to an understanding of what is needed to

allow God to get at the root. “Going through the motions

doesn’t please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you. I

learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heartshattered

lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s

Pride has a selfish focus: self-sufficiency, self-promotion,

and self-protection. It is only when we give up the weed

whacking and allow our pride to be shattered, shifting our focus

off ourselves and onto God, that He takes notice of our cry

for His attention and mercy. When we have come to the end of

our rope, we acknowledge that God is our only hope. There is

nothing we can do to make ourselves feel or be better. All other

attempts to secure love from others have been flawed and

even our attempts to love ourselves have failed. It is only putting

God in first place that brings about the changed life that

fully realizes the power of Christ’s redemption.

We must be willing to be broken and delve into the messes

in our boxes with Him. We cannot allow ourselves to put

boundaries on how God chooses to bring about full healing

and restoration. To fully realize the power of Christ’s redemption,

we must give God complete control. The result will be a

transformation that allows us to become more and more like

Him as we move toward “attaining to the whole measure of

the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).

Full Redemption

26

Until we have done this, we are prisoners of our pasts. We

end up being shackled to the past, tiptoeing around an issue, a

person, or some part of our story. “You are only as sick as your

is one of our deepest longings to get to the point where our

past, our hurts, and our attitudes bow down to Christ on the

cross, rather than us bowing down to them. God wants to buy

back our stories and use them to further His story. The power

of Christ’s redemption is that we are no longer slaves but that

we “have been set free from sin and have become slaves to

God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is

eternal life” (Rom. 6:22).

Imagine being in a prison that strips us of our freedoms

and robs us of self-worth. We struggle under the daily grind of

maintaining life within the walls of this prison. Unexpectedly,

someone comes along and offers us an escape, complete with

a full pardon and a guarantee that we never return to prison.

Would we accept such a gift? (See Eph. 2:8-9.) Would we attempt

to bargain with our Pardoner about what life outside

should look like? Would we put a stranglehold on freedom

and remain in prison because of a need for control or fear of

life outside the prison walls? God asks us to trust Him both

with the pardon and with life after prison.

We may fear that, after receiving this gift, God could ask

us to do or say something that is beyond our abilities or outside

our comfort zones. In order to grant God access to the

boxes and make Him Lord of our lives, we must trust Him.

Faith in God and His character becomes the impetus for

turning our stories over to God. As we learn to trust who God

is, we will learn to trust what God does.

Full Redemption

27

Abraham became a man of great faith one step at a time.

God groomed Abraham and built his faith through the many

trials of his life. Waiting for the fulfillment of the promise for

a son strengthened and shaped Abraham’s faith in God. Each

of Abraham’s life experiences was used by God to shape and

prepare him for the event recorded in Gen. 22. God had enlarged

Abraham’s faith in His goodness so that when asked to

give up his beloved son as a sacrifice, Abraham trusted God

enough to be willing to do it. This complete trust of who God

is afforded Abraham the strength and faith to give back what

he held so dearly. Through this act of obedient surrender,

God raised up the nation of Israel. We must trust God to do

what He needs to do in order for our stories to have the opposite

of their intended effect.

We have become worn-out trying to manipulate our stories.

It is a burden to try and make life work while living with

unpacked boxes. Let’s delve into this unpacking process and

look at the significant relationships in our lives. Invite the

Holy Spirit to do the subsurface work of getting at the root.

Let’s stop the weed whacking. Let’s see how God desires to

unpack each of these relationships so that they can be used by

Him for His glory and our benefit. Trust Him with the

process.

• Psalm 130

• Isaiah 57:15

• Psalm 51:17

• Philippians 1:12

Full Redemption

28

• Isaiah 40:2

• Ephesians 1:7-8

• Hebrews 9:14

• Colossians 1:13-14

• Psalm 25:4-10

• Romans 6:22-23

1. What part of your story have you been weed whacking (only

dealing with the visible effects, not getting at the roots)?

2. Which relational boxes are you trying to unpack on your

own?

3. What is keeping you from allowing God to be your unpacking

partner?

4. Open one relational box. Write out the things in that box

that make you feel good. Make another list of those things

that feel broken, hurtful, or unresolved. Spend time with

God, asking Him to show you how He wants to redeem

these.

5. Imagine (and journal) what it would feel like to have relief

and joy flood into your soul should you allow God to redeem

your story.

6. Ask God to build your trust in Him.

Full Redemption