Restoration Reboot

 Eyes stare out at filtered sunlight coming through trees freshly rained on. Thoughts wander as I catch up with a long-time friend - a battle buddy of sorts that's been one of a loyal few who's weathered the worst days with me and loved me through it all. After several busy weeks of sporadic texts and well overdue for a real conversation, I'm recounting the latest and updating him on where I've been, where I'm at, and where I believe beyond all doubt that I'm going. 

It's a good place, this season I'm in. While the immediate feels uncertain, the long view has never been more clear. Recent months have had me reconnecting with parts of myself long abandoned, finding the voice to say what I've held for too long inside, calling out the unnamed hidden things, and recalibrating for opportunities yet unseen. Even as relationships are being re-defined and there seems like dislocation in my life everywhere, there's a peace coming over me I haven't felt in forever. Peace that can only arrive when you resolve to return to your centered place - to the space where you're reminded of who you are and what you're made for... of where you belong in the Father's house. 

As I catch up my friend on the ups and downs of my journey of late, it suddenly hits me and I feel a major paradigm shift coming on: when I entered 2022 with the promised word "restore," somehow it felt like it would involve my getting something back... that long-awaited resolution would appear in the form of receiving - receiving forgiveness, new opportunities, etc. And, while some of that certainly has happened, something far different has taken place. 

Suddenly, I notice that the concept of restoration isn't always about a change in circumstances or outcomes. Restore doesn't always look like getting back exactly what was taken from you or having things work out just like you'd hoped. Sometimes restore looks like God transforming you instead. 

Maybe it isn't about God restoring things to me but actually, just restoring...me.

Perhaps what He's been after this year is helping me find the parts of myself that got silenced and wounded and shamed and blamed and bringing those into the Light so they can be confessed and healed. Perhaps He was after much more than just fixing the broken scenarios in my little world but also fixing me along the way, too. 

Yes, mended fences do assist in the sewing-up of the heart and every willingness to admit wrong makes a right but sometimes, God doesn't tie up things how we'd envisioned and some things never resolve like we excepted. Sometimes God just ties up us and deals with us. 

This epiphany of sorts is like a restoration reboot. I may have initially thought that "restore" would happen in certain ways but everything about the past months has been...well...unexpected. Change and transition have laced throughout as obstacles have been removed that I'd prepared myself to have to walk through, understanding has come between hearts as surprise right-making has occurred, healing helpers have come along who see and hear me in my realest form and want to speak life to my recovering soul. 

And I now see it clear: once you make the courageous choice to get well - to mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically do whatever it takes to find the peace you've longed for, the hope you've searched for, the vitality you've prayed for - once you do that, everything begins to fall into place. God helps you. He helps you because you've been willing to do what it takes to cooperate with Him in helping yourself. Staying stuck in situations that suck the life out of you, take away your voice, carve at your confidence, traumatize you make it hard for recovery to find you. Sometimes in order to be restored, you need to change things up - address the hidden, articulate the unspoken, remove yourself from the toxic. 

Perhaps it's not wrong but actually right to take yourself "out of the game" when needed. Oh, you can pray for help and healing all you want but if you don't get proactive and do the hard things to make it happen, it likely won't. At least not to the extent you maybe need. 

God's made it obvious that it's a time of rest. After all, you can't have "restore" without "rest" being a part of it. Eighteen years of ministry have taken their toll, along with countless other tragedies that put me in full-on survival mode. This season is about stepping back and learning to breathe. Letting God fill in the cracks, patch up the broken places, give life into the empty spaces. 

If, like me, you're maybe struggling to thrive and crying out for life and you feel like you're sinking further down in a hole you can't escape, maybe it's time for a restoration reboot of your own. A retreat into solitude and a circle of peace where you can regroup and God can calm the storms within. Maybe it's time to do the tough things or have the difficult conversations you've been putting off for fear of others' responses - to say out loud what you really need and start working towards the things that will actually put you on the road to health. 

Restoration won't probably look like how you expect. It certainly hasn't for me. But it will turn out as it's supposed to. And the finished product will always be worth it. There will be some stripping and shaving and repairing and patching. And yes, it will probably hurt at times too. But I choose (and hopefully, you do also) to walk through these things because I want the end goal more than I desire my own convenience and comfort. I want it to be well with my soul, and I trust the skillful hands of my Master above all. 

Don't be afraid to go into His shop for awhile for repairs. As I'm learning slowly, it's a choice you won't regret.