Lessons from Redemptive Tie-Dyeing

new is easier but restored is better

Allow me to ruin some stories for you¹:

• A miserly old banker named Ebenezer Scrooge refuses to help his employee provide for his crippled son…so the employee finds a job elsewhere and gets more healthcare benefits.

• Moana’s island is suffering from an inexplicable blight…so she arranges fro the village to receive shipments of food from a different island.

• Frodo was given an evil ring of power…so he gave it to an eagle to drop into the fire of Mount Doom for him.

In case you couldn’t tell, I made the stories easier and safer. I made them into how I’d prefer to live them.

I removed a little thing called redemption, thus stripping these stories of the imagination that maybe, through much pain and difficulty, broken things can not just be forgotten but actually made right.

Better Than New

I really like new things and fresh starts. Boy oh boy, do I like fresh starts. But God has a more creative mind than I do. He likes to give fresh starts to, with, and through old things.
New is easier, but restored is often better.

It’s very hard to have the imagination that something terrible can believably end up better than if the bad thing had never happened. When I watch movies or shows or read novels, I’m always curious about how the author or screenwriter had to try to, like, conjure redemption. It’s very hard to plan out how bad things will be made right, but the audience yearns to see it.

That’s what God does, in all the mysterious ways He intersects human actions with His good and wise plans. He likes to make things new, not from scratch or from a factory. Unrecognizably better than new.

And that is why I like tie-dye.

Yesterday the kids and I had our annual Redemptive Tie-Dyeing Day. For months, we’ve been setting aside stained clothes from our wardrobes because we knew the day would come when we’d be able to wear them again. Our items would just have to be irrevocably changed. We make a big mess one day each year and just like that, our stained clothes become way cooler than they were brand-new.

It’s powerful to partake in “un-ruining” something. To enter imperfection—and to bring your own imperfection—and say “I’m not giving up on you. I see your potential. You’re going to be better than new.”

No Blank Canvases or Un-Risky Relationships

Here’s one way this plays out. When you are entering into a new relationship—friendship, marriage, family, etc.—it’s not like you’re befriending a blank canvas. Even a newborn baby isn’t a blank canvas. Loving anyone at all is signing up for a great deal of complexity. We’re all “damaged goods” (a term I hate) and we’re all bound to inflict damage.

The intertwining of two stories is an invitation to experience redemption firsthand. What if your weaknesses and pains serve great purpose for this other person, and vice versa? What if you met randomly at the park and a year later she would experience a loss and you’re able to be a trustworthy ear, or you have a serious blindspot in your character and she calls you out for it? What if you’re an incredible team—and maybe it doesn’t feel that way, but it would if you zoomed out to a 150-year-timeline and saw ripples of value—and your union brings new and beautiful things into existence?

I almost wrote “what if the reason you randomly met at the park is because—” but that’s so closed-minded. There probably isn’t a reason or just one “because.” There are probably ten thousand reasons. And a lot of them will come through unpleasant means. But that doesn’t mean a relationship needs to be given up on. Maybe we just need to have more imagination.

Sometimes, of course, you do have to give up on relationships, or jobs or endeavors or goals, but even giving up can be in hope. Sometimes the most restorative thing you can do is to allow a person to hit rock bottom. Maybe that’s exactly what they need to find true healing. Or maybe right now you are in your Rock Bottom Era, but…it’s not worst-case scenario because, remember, redemption exists.

God is a really, really good storyteller. He doesn’t remove the hard stuff like I wish He would. He is making beautiful things out of ugly things, good and pure things out of horrible and evil things, and He likes doing it. It’s what He’s working toward with the universe: restoring everything to what it’s supposed to be.² Our hearts and bodies yearn for it like we earn for movies to have happy endings.

I hope you get to participate in some un-ruining this week. Your story is overflowing with potential…even the sketchy parts. You’re not a blank canvas, and that’s a good thing. You might be in the middle of some irrevocable change, but I promise you can trust Jesus to have a good ending in mind.

What appears as a total waste or merely a singular silver lining is probably more like thousands and thousands of beautiful threads forming a tapestry you won’t get to see for a long time.³

Scrooge, Moana, and Frodo turned out okay, right?

Love,

Hope

P.S. Here are some memories from this week ♥️

making a mess and un-ruining something!

we’ve been going to the creek this summer…it’s not even on Google maps, just a hidden oasis. love it

me and my littlest

def recommend this book, 11/10

1. If you need the spoilers for how the stories mentioned above actually ended:

• Scrooge learned some painful and scary lessons that led to a change of heart and a healed relationship with the Cratchit family (and many others.)

• Moana found the root cause of the blight and returned Te Fiti’s heart, bringing healing to the land.

• Frodo went on a treacherous quest, lost a finger, united a group of people, restored a king to his kingdom, and personally defeated the bad guy. However, we all know Samwise is the real hero 😏

2. See 2 Corinthians 5 and Ephesians 1 for, like, the purpose of the universe and how we get to be a part of it. 🤯

3. I just finished C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce and that last chapter was absolutely bonkers. His imagination about ways that our loving relationships echo into eternity…I almost fell over while reading it. Please, someone, discuss it with me.