24 Days to Reflect on God's Heart for Redemptionნიმუში

Shanjula's story of redemption

Shanjula Harris woke up early every morning in the homeless shelter to help her children get ready for school. After she dropped them off, she came back, put on her nicest clothes, and started walking.

“Every day, Lord knows, I’d walk up and down downtown Dallas and ask for work. And I did it every single day,” she said. Shanjula had worked for years as a medical assistant at a Dallas hospital, but when she lost her job, she had nowhere to go. She and her three children were forced to move into a shelter the day before Thanksgiving.

Her story isn’t unusual. About 85% of homeless families in the U.S. are headed by women. “One thing I did [in the shelter] was I prayed a lot,” she said.

The next year, Shanjula received the break she needed: she was accepted into a self-sufficiency family ministry for single-parent families seeking higher education in Dallas. She was also offered a new job. She was able to study and work full time, while her children attended school.

Shanjula and her children became part of a program that combines housing, child care, and access to college education for residents who are primarily single mothers. The goal and purpose of the program is holistic redemption for the entire person.

Shanjula found hope; she experienced God’s unfailing love, and she began to write the next chapter in her story of redemption.

From the beginning of human history, God’s work and purpose for humanity was to redeem what was lost in the garden. What was intended for harm, over and over again, is made into good through God’s work of redemption. In the Old Testament, we can see patterns of his redemptive work in the lives of unsuspecting people.

It’s in his nature to redeem broken people.

Reflection question:

• Reading Psalm 130:7-8, how have you experienced God’s unfailing love and full redemption?