restoration

Tonight I took a walk in the past and then followed that timeline into the present.  What I realized placed a powerful smile in my heart.

Here is my brief history:

I had walked the life of a ho-hum Christian until May 2011 when my lifetime of complacency came to an end.  For the next year and a half I sought spiritual understanding and asked God to remove strongholds from my life for His purpose and glory.

By January 2013, instruction and learning at the feet of Jesus intensified.

Then by fall 2013, I spent the next 9 months fighting forcefully to keep standing for Jesus while all hell broke loose and tried to defeat me.  That was such a painful period of brokenness and pain but Jesus was ever faithful.

From May 2014 till September 2015, my gentle Healer came to my aid.  Almost a year and a half!  Wow.  And that was not some casual healing, either, it was quite intense and purposeful.

And now?

Now, I have finally entered a period of restoration.

I have been waiting for this since 2013!  I've still been praying to God, asking Him when He would ever restore me.  I didn't realize He was actually doing it already.  How cool is He?

I have, over the last couple years, used the phrase, "....for my healing."  More recently I told someone, "that [something] provided healing for my heart."  But I felt disconnected from the word "healing" for some reason.  I felt a more appropriate word would have been "restoration."

All the things I'm experiencing now, they are restoring me!  They are making me new, not addressing the brokenness of yesterday.

What a lovely place to be.  What a long road it has been.  What a joy to recognize God fulfilling His promises to me.

Oh, how I love the promise of the verse in Joel 2:25.  I will restore to you the years the locust hath eaten.  That's not a promise of healing; that's a promise of restitution.

I wait on you, God, to fulfill your promise and restore all that has been lost, if you feel it would bring glory to your name.  I look forward to what you have purposed and planned for my life from here on out...