Behold, I am making all things new...
Re·store /rəˈstôr/
verb
past tense: restored; past participle: restored
bring back (a previous right, practice, custom, or situation); reinstate.
To return to a former condition, place or position.
The kids and I, along with their mawmaw, visited the farm last night to see the progress on the subfloor. Driving up to the farm my need for decent yard work made my insides turn over. The front yard is now a hay field just begging to be cut, the fields are overgrown hiding rocks and debris and my need for the place to immediately be restored to its former condition took over. Frustration began to creep in. I had this immediate need to put feet to action, call for yet another dumpster, rev up the tractor and bush hog the property.
Last night after getting home, some of my first words to my husband were, “think it’s safe to bush hog the farm?” I just couldn’t let it go. I just couldn’t get past the ‘former’ condition of the farm. I’ve been longing for things of the past. Please tell me that I’m not the only one who does this.
If my kids could only be little again, If I could still be at my old job, If this or that hadn’t of happened, if my marriage was the way it was 5 years ago, if we hadn’t of made the decision to move or sell this house or that. All past decisions and circumstances that we wish we could change. But the truth is, that for the most part, all of this is completely out of our control.
I write in these blogs to heal, to show progress, to document, but if I’m honest, a lot of it is for healing. Praying that someone else feels the same and can grab a hold of the little glimpses the Lord shows me when I lift up my head and look to Him. Do I always do that as often as I should? No, I don’t… and that’s why I stay in the trenches more than I would like to admit. Because truth is, if I took more time to sit with Him, to lift my head to Him, to call on the one who calms the storm… my soul would be more at peace. My soul would be less weary.
After we visited the farm yesterday, I left excited because of the progress that was being made, but also anxious. I wanted those little things to be done. I wanted the ‘ugly’ of the overgrown grass, the weeds growing up around what fencing and flowers that were left- to be taken care of. While those things were swimming around in my head, Kati sent me two pictures she had taken. I saw the ugly, but she saw the beautiful.
Our newly built building.
The breathtaking sunset (and man are they pretty out there), the way the grown up grass was beautiful against the new, little white barn, the weeds that made pretty flowers. Her perspective was beautiful and I sat back and breathed a minute. I hear you, Lord.
He is restoring, He is doing a “new thing”. Yes, the overgrown grass might be frustrating, but there’s beauty in it. Yes, the trenches and the valley are a crappy place to be, but there’s beauty in it if we choose to see it. There’s nearness to the Creator in the trenches, there’s dependency and faith rising. He wastes nothing and so therefore I will choose to praise Him today for the valley and ask Him to change my perspective.
Look away from the weeds, look away from the problem, friend. Where is the beauty? Because it’s there, if we only choose to see it.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
That breathtaking sunset and little white weed.
