Restoration

When we restore something, we make what already is or what once was, better. We may give it new paint, new parts, or new color to bring life back to it. We don’t go back in time to bring its original form into our present time. No, we take the old and add the new making it better. Restoration doesn’t mean the same as what once was.

When God said He would restore my family, my mind automatically saw what used to be, so hope filled my mind and heart.

This whole time I’ve been looking, watching, waiting for restoration by remembering what it was like in my happiest past experience. I was looking, waiting, watching for my own comfort and desires based on what once was.

God said He was doing a new thing and restoring my family to me.

Isaiah 43:18-19 NLT — “But forget all that— it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.

My past, being mine cannot be seen by my children or my husband. No amount of my telling’s of stories could ever help either as what we picture in our mind while hearing stories is usually completely different than the actual real portrait of events.

It’s not possible for my husband and children to get back to who we were in my past. Truth is, the time I envision as the best most beautiful, perfect time, one of my kids or my husband may have been suffering tremendous pain silently. When I bring up memories from that time the one who suffered won’t remember that time as happy or good.

Some of us have lost family and know there is absolutely no way we can ever be the same again. Some of us have allowed canyons that would put The Grand Canyon to shame, to divide once very close relationships. We do things to each other, horrible, mean things we can never undo. Life, so it seems, is not meant to go back as it relentlessly keeps pushing forward. And each person’s perception of what was and what is, may be similar, but is as different and unique as we are created to be individually.

Father God says to me, “no daughter, restoration of your family will not look like anything you have ever known. True restoration doesn’t come from a time before hard life lessons have been learned and beautiful, deep inner changes have been made as my children grow and learn from their mistakes. Restoration will come from the one place the enemy cannot go, a place the enemy cannot in any way affect upon.”

The enemy is all over my past and wreaking havoc here in my present But as God is my witness the enemy cannot touch my future.

Father God said He is restoring my family, He said He is doing a new thing, I have not seen this new thing because it’s not in my past, it is in my future and beginning to open up in my present.

Lamentations 3:21-23 NLT — Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.

My faith in God’s abilities, never faltering, brings on tears of understanding and praise of his awesome goodness.

When my LORD God says He will Restore my family, I can be absolutely sure of three things;

He will do what He said.
It will be unimaginably better than it ever was, even in my greatest, most precious memory.
Once restored by Him, it will never be broken again.

I’m so excited I could spit!! I wait in faith with anticipation, knowing His timing, like everything else, will be perfect.

Until next time, may God bless you and keep you, as you seek Him with your whole heart.

My Conclusion

Why does it always have to make since,

Every little line and every word?

Why does it have to be in some kind of form?

To me its just absurd.

I really don’t understand it,

Although I still try to write.

Trying to come up with something,

That looks good in somebody else’s sight.

I think it should come,

Straight from your heart.

Every little line,

And every little part.

But to get the applause,

Of those who are reading,

You have to write something,

Better then those competing.

Whether the lines all match,

Or the words all rhyme,

To write something good,

It always takes time.

Its hard to take criticism,

From those who give it,

For every poem you write,

You’re the one who lived it.

Because it makes since to you,

You suppose it makes since to them.

But as for every heart that’s reading,

You cant always win.

I came to the conclusion,

I don’t have to know just why,

All I really have to do,

Is give my all and try.

Carrie Wink 1998

Wandering closet stuffers

In today’s society we are not really just desert walker’s, like the Israelites. No, we seem to be more like closet stuffers.

Joshua 5:6 NLT — The Israelites had traveled in the wilderness for forty years until all the men who were old enough to fight in battle when they left Egypt had died. For they had disobeyed the LORD, and the LORD vowed he would not let them enter the land he had sworn to give us—a land flowing with milk and honey.

See the Israelites wondered 40 years in the desert after gaining their freedom from Egyptian captivity. All because they chose to stay within the box of their victim mentality. They participated in the physical liberation but refused liberation of their minds and hearts. For the most part they were born into captivity and so were slaves their whole lives, so it stands to reason then, their minds and hearts were basically programmed as victims because of their captivity. Maybe they heard stories of the days their people were free, days in which they were not oppressed, stories that seemed probably like fairy tales as they faced their current daily circumstances. Fact is, they as a whole cried out to God, knowing only an act of God would bring about even the possibility of ever being free.

Then, one day they watched, as God freed them from the Egyptians. They crossed the parted Red Sea, they followed the smoke cloud of God, and they ate daily, the manna God Himself provided each morning.

No matter how much proof they had through signs and wonders God performed before their very eyes, they just couldn’t free their minds and hearts. God led them out of captivity but they lacked the faith needed to break the chains of the victim mentality they habitually lived in. As I think on their journey, I’m of the opinion they had to have been literally making an effort not to trust in God. I guess I just can’t see, how a whole generation of people, could see miracles with their very own eyes, and then forget they happened before they breathe their next breath.

Either way I’d say they were complaining, selfish, desert wanderers. Just like I myself have been on numerous occasions.

I have often referred to in my life, when I am reluctantly going through trials and struggles meant to bring about change within me, as my desert time.

Truth is, although as practicing Christians, the time wandering the desert of change is necessary, these days we have become expert at knowing what people want from us and performing based on their desire and or requirements, even when we disagree. That fake it till you make it mentality. We stuff ourselves into the closet while we seek the approval of others, whether that be for a job, social group, family, or even a marriage. Our true self stays locked in the closet only allowed to come out once in awhile when no one is around to witness it. Some of us try to forget about what we locked away and so try to become the person we are portraying to the world that we are.

The problem is, we can’t actually become anything other than who we are unless we change as a whole. The neglected, locked away, forgotten about, part of who we are, is needed in order to bring about true change within ourselves. Doesn’t mean we have to like that part of ourselves, doesn’t mean we have to embrace that part of ourselves either. It just means we have to accept that part of ourselves as being part of who we are. Just because we may not like it and no matter how much we wish it wasn’t so, doesn’t allow us to just pluck it out like unwanted eyebrows.

Change is a process. True change happens when we are totally committed to said change. To be serious and committed to change it takes all of who we are, the parts we like and those we don’t like or even want to admit.

When we are born, we are; taught to cry in order to alert our parents or caregiver of a need, such as a wet diaper or hunger, or a want, such as being held and cuddled. We are taught, in a sense, to be selfish. We want or we need, therefore demand with a cry, and quickly receive.

Then once we have grown up to toddler age, we get the shock of our lives. At least the little bit of life we have at that point lived.

We get told no!!!

In essence, no means the world no longer revolves around us. You see prior to our first being told no, all our wants and needs have been quickly met once demanded.

Now, we get told no, and so we cry, to no avail. Our cry no longer gets the desired results. A battle begins, as we fight for our way and our parents or caregiver fight for our understanding that the world no longer revolves around us.

There was a season in our lives, from birth until toddler, where the world needed to revolve around us. It was just that, a season of time, once that season of time came to an end, we had to be taught the world no longer revolved around us, hence the move into a new season of our lives.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 NLT — For everything there is a season, A time for every activity under heaven.

Sometimes, moving into this new season is difficult no matter how old we get. When we’re being taught, from that toddler age on, that the world no longer revolves around us, it is hard to understand because all we ever knew was that the world did revolve around us. All we had to do was cry out to be comforted or taken care of. Now in this new season, we find out there are hard lessons to learn that can cause heartache and tears. Lessons that teach us how to survive in a world that in fact, does not, revolve around us. It is not that our parents or caregiver means to punish us or cause us pain, they just have to teach us, so that we don’t end up with worse pain. So they show us the right way, even though it is hard to learn.

Just because something was allowed in one season of our lives, doesn’t mean that we will be able to have it in the next season, or even the season after that. It means, that we needed it for the season that is finished, and we may not be allowed it in the season to come. It was there for a purpose and the purpose was now gone. The very first season of our lives, from birth to toddler, it is needed for us to believe that the world in fact, revolves around us, so that we will ask for our desire and need. Once we have passed the season in which we need to cry out, that world revolving around us mentality, is no longer needed and so we now, must be taught, what we need for the next season of our lives while learning to let go of the previous season.

The Israelites couldn’t let go of their season of slavery and so could never embrace the season of The promised Land.

We, even though we try to forget the closet part of ourselves, will make decisions with that part in mind. If we truly don’t want to continue being haunted by the parts of us we feel ashamed of or that we ourselves don’t like, we first have to face it, understand just because it’s something within ourselves doesn’t mean we can’t hate it and choose to change it. It’s just until we admit it and allow ourselves to hate it we can’t change it. To truly change and make the change stick we first have to change our heart. To change our heart we only have to change our mind.

We need to understand that having a desire to change a part of who we are, is in no way, a decision that we aren’t good enough, or that we aren’t worthy, etc. Etc., when in comparison to others in this world. It does give us wisdom in that we are less than worthy of God’s love. The fact that we have the ability because of Jesus to notice a way in us that just doesn’t seem to fit the righteousness of God, tells how wise, humble, and worthy we really are.

Hiding ourselves stuffed in a closet only causes a rollercoaster of trying and failing change. Acceptance of everything about us, after taking a real honest look at what we have hidden, will allow us to confess our knowledge of it and then decide to hate it and ultimately, opening the door to true change.

This is what repentance does for us. Father God already knows the closet part of us.

Romans 5:8 CSB — But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

We may be able to fool other people, but we cannot fool God, Who sees all and even though He sees all, still loves us so much that He sent his son to die for us, that we might be reconciled to Him. Repentance allows this so long as we are looking truthfully and honestly at who we really are.

Psalm 32:5 NLT — Finally, I confessed all my sins to you And stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the LORD.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.

Closet stuffing and wandering in the wilderness are traps the enemy sets to blind us from moving into our new season. The enemy doesn’t want us to know we have graduated. The enemy will stop at nothing to steal our hope, kill our joy and destroy our faith.

The Lord Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah as we read in,

Luke 4:18-19 NLT — “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, For he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, That the blind will see, That the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD’s favor has come.”

We may choose to stay trapped by the enemies lies but the absolute truth is, we don’t have to! We can claim our freedom as we were bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus! Victory is ours because the battle is the Lord’s!!

Until next time may God bless you and keep you as you seek Him with your whole heart!