I’ve pondered the word restore today–finding synonymous definition in healing, reconciliation, rejuvenation even. In the death of winter and the birth of spring. In the chill of fever and the breaking into the damp skin and wet hair of health. In the pain of the dark night of the soul and the relief of joy’s new morning. Restore is spring’s mantra. We see green pop out of dust and people pop out of doors, both hungry for sun and soil and socializing. We all long to be restored–restored to the person we felt we were as children or perhaps as the person we prayerfully hope is promised. We desire our families to be whole and reconciled. We desire our churches and our nations to be wrecked by mercy and justice instead of pain and discrimination. We try and try and try to achieve these thing but they aren’t like trophies given to the most successful but gifts given to the most humble and faithful.
So today, let us be faithful to God’s promise of reconciliation and wholeness. Let us not ignore the pain of today but usher in those thin small threads of grace that lead us to that golden rope of salvation.