REDEEM
REDEEM- Kimz Pondosities™
Last year, when I wrote my first Pondosity on my birthday — my first RE-word, Rebirth — I began with these words:
“I am sharing my story not to relive it, but to redeem it, to let you glimpse the jagged edges and the tender mercies that carried me back to myself.”
For 1,823 days — nearly five years — I lived inside a legal battle that pressed deeply into the most tender parts of my life story.
It questioned my character.
It questioned my husband’s character.
It questioned my father’s character and legacy.
It pressed into family dynamics that were never theirs to probe. And it did so before, during, and after a global pandemic.
For 1,823 mornings, I woke up knowing that somewhere in the background, something was being constructed against us.
Narratives were formed.
Accusations were made.
Words were spoken that did not reflect the truth that was lived.
Some nights I was lying awake at 2, 3, and 4 in the morning — not trying to prove anyone wrong but trying to understand how truth could become so distorted and how fabrications could appear out of nowhere.
My father had already passed away and could not represent himself.
He had no voice. I was his voice.
My father had assigned me to be his power of attorney for everything since my mother passed and I was his trustee and now his executor.
I now needed to speak up as my father's advocate.
And then, years later, the pressure turned toward my husband.
Four and a half years into the lawsuit — still during the pandemic — we were called into a deposition.
We were placed in separate rooms.
Separate computer screens while in a “ZOOM” deposition.
Separate office spaces for each of our counsel.
And the questions toward my husband began.
They were not neutral.
They were designed
to provoke,
to imply,
to stain,
to tarnish,
to break him,
And to humiliate him.
I still feel it in my body when I remember that day.
I was exhausted. I had wondered how much more I could take.
And then the accusations toward my husband came in rapid fire.
In that moment, something in me ignited.
Not chaos — clarity.
What had stunned and shaken me to my core became immovable.
The energy that once felt like depletion became strength.
I spoke.
Not to win. But to draw a line.
Enough.
There are moments when love refuses to remain passive.
This was one of them.
The name I once gave myself - "Stands firm and strong in the wind" - came to life in that office that day.
By then my husband was extremely tired.
It was time for him to rest — and for me to take up the heavier load and carry what I could.
So, I stood grounded in truth.
It has always been easier for me to stand up for someone I love rather than to stand up for myself.
First, I stood for my father.
And now, it was for my husband who was weary, pressed, carrying the weight more than any one person should have had to bear.
Again, I stood.
For the one without a voice.
For the one carrying the weight.
For the one being handed a raw deal.
Love does that.
Love steps in.
And yet to be redeemed is never free. It doesn't come cheaply.
Something is always paid — in time, in energy, in reputation, in resources, in physical and emotional well-being, in sleep, and/or in strength.
For 1,823 days and nights, the fire burned.
There were long evenings I wrestled with God.
Not in unbelief — but in disbelief and in protest.
I was deeply unsettled that He would permit something that felt so hauntingly familiar and so unbelievably unfair.
I likened that depletion to a boa constrictor around my torso, slowly and strongly squeezing the breath from my lungs.
AND
I wanted to live.
I asked myself daily:
What am I supposed to learn from this?
What is the purpose?
I know we each have free will. God is not our puppeteer. But it felt overwhelming.
I searched my soul wondering what I had done to deserve this.
Was I being punished?
As a child, punishment had been familiar.
Correction had not always been gentle.
Love had not always felt safe nor had been safe.
I remember being two or three years old sitting in my small light yellow plastic boat bathtub inside the larger porcelain tub.
My hair covered in sudsy soap.
Maybe it was not Johnson’s No More Tears formula.
Maybe soap actually got in my eyes.
Maybe I was crying.
I don’t remember every detail.
I do know I was not comprehending what I had done wrong.
What I do remember was a hand being raised coming toward me.
And before it could land, my grandmother caught the wrist mid-air.
Protection arrived before the blow.
An exhale.
I did not understand it then. I only knew that a hand was stopped.
But my body remembered.
Years later, standing inside a legal storm I did not create, I felt that same bewilderment rise again.
What did I do wrong?
Why does this feel so familiar?
My nervous system remembered before my mind could explain.
The body does keep score.
And yet, just as protection arrived in that bathtub decades prior, protection arrived again — not loudly, not dramatically, but steadily.
I did not see it at first.
All I felt was pressure. All I felt was depletion.
But protection was already moving even though it seemed a far distance, and we were too bleary-eyed to see it.
Then there came the day.
Someone in authority read every page — every single page — of our litigation.
Not a summary. Not a narrative shaped by accusation. Every page.
The law was applied the way it was meant to be applied.
Truth was not twisted.
It was examined.
In that room, I was heard.
When I was validated, I felt vindicated.
There was no applause. No dramatic announcement.
Just calm, firm acknowledgement.
The release came in floods of tears.
All the pressure I had carried for years finally exhaled.
It felt as though the tears nourished my root system.
I felt firmly planted again — standing firm and strong in the wind of truth.
Redemption began externally. And slowly, steadily, it settled internally.
When I think about redemption now, I don’t first see a courtroom.
I see roots.
And that image carries me to one of my heart places in the world — Lahaina, Maui.
Does anyone remember August of 2023?
The devastating wildfires. Lives tragically lost. Generations of history reduced to ash. The historic town flattened.
The people of Maui, many of whom we have bonded with over the last 20-plus years, have become my ohana — my family.
The news ripped through my heart.
Homes and businesses gone. Beloved places reduced to rubble. Families torn apart and forever altered.
And in the center of it all stood the majestic banyan tree — planted in 1873, nearly a century and a half old.
Its limbs had stretched wide for generations.
Its canopy had sheltered thousands.
Its roots had held the town’s square together for 150 years.
After the fire, nearly forty percent of the tree was severely damaged.
Ash clung to bark.
Limbs were charred.
Its canopy was thinned and torn.
It looked as though it should not survive.
And yet the roots still held.
Green shoots began to emerge.
Fire did not define that tree.
The roots did.
This banyan tree represents redemption in so many ways.
The fires of life do not determine your future.
Your roots determine your future.
Redemption grounds you again.
It reminds you of what was true long before the firestorm ever arrived.
Etymology
The word redeem comes from the Latin redimere —to buy back, to ransom, to rescue, to recover, to release through a costly payment.
It implies that something once bound is no longer held captive.
To redeem is not to erase what happened. It is not to deny the firestorms of life.
It is to seek the restoration beneath the surface. There might need to be excavation in the process.
It declares and reclaims what remains true after the fire.
It is to stand grounded again in integrity.
It is to say what was buried is not destroyed.
It can be unearthed.
It can be restored.
It can stand again.
To be redeemed does not deny the cost.
It acknowledges it.
It testifies that what was bound can be released, what was accused can stand, and what was nearly depleted can rise again.
As I sat pondering this word, I was reminded of something simple and true:
“Redemption is rarely where you expect to find it.”— Sherrilyn Kenyon
Sometimes it arrives in a grandmother’s grip mid-air.
Sometimes it arrives in strength you did not know you possessed.
Sometimes it arrives through a team of people who believe justice and truth are worth fighting for.
Sometimes it arrives in roots that refuse to die.
“But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity; redeem me and be merciful and gracious to me.”— Psalm 26:11 (AMP)
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Pause & Contemplate
Where in your life does something still feel scorched but not destroyed?
Pause & Center
What remains rooted in you even after loss, accusation, or the cost you have paid?
Pause & Commit
What is one boundary, one truth, or one act of courage that will help you step out of bondage and into freedom this week?
Consider
When you hear the word redeem, what rises in you?
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