My wife and I are fans of restoration shows on television. From, old vehicles, to century homes, to family heirlooms, the variety of good quality programming is endless. One of our favorites is called The Repair Shop, from England. The show features about a dozen restoration specialists that are masters in carpentry, metal work, clock repair, upholstery, jewelry, and fabric and furniture. The premise of the show follows customers who bring family pieces that have incredible back stories and history, yet are connected to the emotions of family. Pieces that come in broken, worn, damaged, neglected and forgotten are then mended to evoke precious memories for the clients. Some are made to look new, but most are restored, yet maintaining the historical scars and bumps so their life history is not erased.
These past few weeks and months for myself and my family have allowed me to listen for God’s voice. Lately, circumstances have drowned Him out, which threw a blanket of writers’ block over me. The more I tried to listen for Him, the more the world seemed to drown Him out. A couple of weeks ago an event in our family shook my wife and I to the core. The end result was a miracle for us and immediately, God’s voice was as clear as the water in the lake near our cottage. All of a sudden, the word restoration came to mind and has kept itself in my soul. It’s like God was telling me to share how He restores things in our lives every day.
I have been given an opportunity to really look inside myself for what is the most important to me and my family. God restored a number of things in me in just one forty eight hour period. He restored my sense of worth. He restored my faith in His power of healing a broken spirit. He restored my view of what is really important in my life. He showed me the true value of being faithful and leaning on Him in crisis. To be clear, I had not lost my way, but was shaken enough to recoil into myself because as a human, I took my eyes off Him for a moment. Fear has a way of doing that to all of us. If you are reading this and you feel somewhat lost from Him, it’s okay. He knows your circumstance and He will place Himself in your soul to carry you, even if you don’t realize it.
Like the master restorers of family heirlooms, God will take all of us who have been broken, scarred, scratched, worn down, faded, and yes, forgotten about, and pull all of that out. Then He will impart Himself in us and gently peel back the hurt, the damaged and the ugly, and discard it. He will then gently restore us. He won’t make us younger , but He will give us a faith-lift that will allow us to stand a little taller. We’ll walk a little straighter, we’ll think a little clearer, we’ll listen and hear more acutely, and we will talk with more conviction. He and only He has the divine power to do this. We are not equipped with divination. We are not God, and we are not robots. We are humans, made in His image, yet frail enough to always have the need to lean on Him for everything. We will stumble, and He will lift us. We will have failures, yet He will forgive us. We will stray from Him, yet He will wait and welcome us back at a moments notice.
I encourage everyone to embrace God’s ability to bring restoration into your life. Allow Him to permeate every cell in your body and every part of your soul and spirit. His restoration of you and me will be as individual as our fingerprints. No two will be identical and some will take longer than others. Yet, like a vintage car or favorite armchair, we will have enough of us in there to recognize ourselves, and more than enough of Him in us to always be shiny and comfortable. We will have our laugh lines, some hairlines, and yes, some waistlines. We will be our age, but young in the spirit. So let’s not miss the opportunity to be God’s feet on the ground to show Him to as many people as we can. That in itself, may just be the invitation someone needs to accept their turn for restoration in the repair shop.
Mike Shindruk
Master’s Hand Ministry
