LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING FORWARD TO TOMORROW

I look back at only a few months and I know I am not the same person today. The challenges, struggles, and difficult circumstances that have backed me up against the wall have been vivid nightmares that lived on way after I opened my eyes in the morning. Have you ever been there? I take a moment to figure out how I got here and the truth is I don't even know sometimes except that somehow, I'm still standing. 

Here. Right here is a place I don't know what it is yet but I am glad I am "here". For as I wait in this place of the unknown, I can look back and see that through it all, God has kept me and my family. In the moments when I wanted to give up, words of faith, hidden in the reservoir of my mind, sprang up to remind me to have hope. I can tell you that there have been moments when I said, "Lord, enough waiting. I am just going to push this all aside and go on my own." God's loving voice reminded me to wait, to be forgiving, and practice patience.

Oh, it's such a hard place to be when you have to wait. It's so frustrating to wait, be still, and believe that God is going to come through. Maybe not for you, but for me, It's been a hard place. Because I've wanted to leave so much behind and grab a hold of something new. I didn't want the things in my hands that were broken. Yet, here He was asking me to hold them a little longer because he was restoring. God was mending, healing, and rebuilding what I will never have the ability to change. Only He can.

God is still interested in restoring. He takes a family that is falling apart, filled with hurts that extend as far back as the invention of the wheel, and He heals. God doesn't use a bandage to cover the boo-boos. He uses His very own hand to bring together what is broken, crushed, separated, and bruised. 

New. I think that's what I'm experiencing. God is not just desiring to live in the hearts of people. He wants to live in our homes, be the center of our homes and our families. As families, we will offend, hurt, and say the wrong thing. Our actions and attitudes demolish trust and the union of our hearts. God comes and lovingly shows us His way. He never stops loving. We should never stop loving. He never holds back forgiveness. 

We should never keep forgiveness from someone who seeks it. He never stops reaching out to us. We should always be ready to embrace everyone in our family, no matter how much they've messed up, how far away they've gone, and how much deep inside we want to smack the daylights out of them. Hey, keeping it real, right?

So, here I am. I look back and see what was falling apart in my home. I remember how God has kept showing me to hold it all in my hands and wait. And, today I see restoration has begun. Healing has sprung for the deepest part of my heart. The shaking has also begun, but it's all part of it. God allows it all to bring it all together in such a way that there's no denying God alone has done it, and He has done it so well.