Restoration.

Often in my life, I have looked to the Biblical character Job as a source of comfort and hope. Many people read Job and preach sermons about staying faithful to God in trial, or how we should never be like Jobs friends, who accuse him of doing something wrong to deserve such punishment.

When I look to Job though, the only thing I have ever been able to see is hope. For Job loses everything that has ever been important. In the loss of his health, he lost his own sense of comfort. In the loss of his wealth, he lost his prominent status in society. In the loss of his sons and daughters, he lost his heart - for when you love someone that deeply, and lose them so suddenly, you have no idea how to handle such grief. And he lost his respect for his friends, and his wife. He truly had nothing left. What else can be broken in his life? Everything he cares about is in shattered fragmented pieces.

This, gives me hope. It gives me hope because God didn't abandon Job, and He never forgot about him. In fact, God restores everything that Job has lost SEVEN TIMES over. Does this mean that Job ever forgets the echos and ghosts of the things and people he once loved? No. The things God has restored to his life can never fully take the place of his memories of that which he lost, or the pain he felt during that time. But just because it won't be the same, doesn't mean it can't be better.

Restoration comes in many forms and fashions, and it doesn't always look like we think it should. It is never on our time, but it's always on time.

Much has been restored to me in the past year. After everything I loved, planned on, and dreamed of came crashing to my feet, I struggled to move forward with my life. I felt like everyone was moving around me, going 90 mph, and I was stuck. I couldn't move forward, yet I couldn't stop looking back. When I finally started walking forward, at first dawdling, then moving to a jog, finally reaching a sprint, as if I couldn't get away from the loss fast enough. In that act of trust, and surrender that it took to start moving, God has restored more to me than I ever imagined. He has restored to me a family - even if it was in a different form than I ever thought possible. And in that restoration of a family, He taught me a new definition of family. He taught me that the people who believe in you, who love you unconditionally, and push you to be your absolute best, are family, in the truest sense of the world. He restored to me love, awakening a heart that was determined to remain cold and unfeeling, protected from hurt. He has restored to me ambition and dreams for the future, when I once thought it was forever lost. He planted in me the dream and consuming passion for my own ministry, and the knowledge of how to run it.

And He restored to me hope, the most important thing of all. Hope that no matter what I go through in life, no matter what storm I live through, I'll continue to have within me an invincible sunshine. Storms are a chance to grow, to thrive, and better yourself. Rain clears the head.