THE G(L)ORY OF RESTORATION

By Christine Jayakaran

January 10^th, 2023

Isn't it weird that when people speak about restoration they fail to mention that it's a process, sometimes a very long one?

I for one have experienced restoration on so many levels but this year took the cake on being restorative in the hardest of ways. We suffered losses, encountered huge obstacles, faced demons of discouragement and almost every time had to pick ourselves off the floor and keep moving.

As I celebrated the beginning of another year in my life I read through the journals that I have kept for the past year and was a little taken aback at some of the stuff we went through for the past 11 months. I got misty-eyed and then a little steamed up at all that we had to walk through. ‘We are only human how much were we expected to bear?’ is what my heart was screaming at God.

I then quietened down and decided to just look at a few of the past year's struggles and see what I learnt from them.

I saw that some relationships that we thought were lost causes came back stronger than ever. Other losses were the pure providence of God, his love and kindness were so evident in hindsight.

The mountains we faced taught us to develop feet that were firm in faith and ready to scale the slippery slopes that kept appearing before us.

Here's the thing though, although it felt like a dismal year on the surface of it, it was a year of tremendous restoration and transformation! Why? How? Huh? Yea I was confused too until I turned to my trusted treasure- the Bible.

Almost always, in there, restoration is preceded by demolition and destruction. Terrible but true.

I was driving by a 15-year-old building that was originally constructed to be a mall but was never occupied or used by anyone. It eventually got bought over by a huge conglomerate and is being converted into a health city. Interestingly, the buy over was mentioned in the news and I expected them to spruce up the existing building and begin to use it immediately. For the past 11 months though, all we have seen are bulldozers and demolition equipment working night and day at pulling down every inch of what looked like a perfectly fine building. The place is in ruins currently and to be honest doesn’t look very promising. I know though that in a year or two the place will look brilliant but the process of restoration.. ugh.. You get the point!

Restoration is great but it’s not easy. It’s gruelling, it can get messy and it will expose things that we would rather stay hidden. The end product though is glorious because what we are eventually left with is way better than what we started out with.

God doesn't restore us to be exactly who we started out as.

He allows circumstances, people and hardship to break our hardened and sometimes deadened hearts so that we are softened and alive in all the ways that matter!