Photo by Dev Benjamin on Unsplash

Last Sunday, the priest on the TV talked about sacred music and its place in glorifying God. Music is one of my triggers for chronic pain. I find myself avoiding music in general. While the priest discussed how music is woven into worship, I felt a sense of loss. At home, I can control what I listen to and the volumes. But in general I don’t listen to a lot of music anymore.

There was a time I didn’t go anywhere without music. While driving my fingers would dance over the radio dial. In a place of business I listened to whatever was playing in the background. I loved clubbing and dancing. I loved to sing along in church. My favorite hymns still are Amazing Grace and Rock of Ages.

These activities are now pretty much lost to me. This is just one area of my life that chronic pain has taken away. My growth over the last decade has been to learn what I can do and enjoy. In the quiet, I found I enjoy writing and prayer. Not the prayer with music, just communion and conversation with all three of the Holy Trinity; God the Father, Jesus the Son, and Holy Spirit the Comforter. And yes, I discovered silent prayer. There is a special kind of beauty in silence, in sitting in God’s presence. This is what Mary discovered as Martha struggled (Luke 10:38-42 KJV).

I identify with Martha the most. However it took the losses to get me to understand Mary. When I don’t get that quiet time now, I miss the silence. The silence, prayer, and writing are restorative for me! BAM! POW! I think I’ve got it!

{Slow down Milly and think it out. Jesus, Help me understand}

Just like the opposites of Vice and Virtue I learned about last year. With loss comes restoration. It’s a cycle. How can there be restoration without loss?

Photo by David Moum on Unsplash

Sometimes the storm is not outside the walls of our homes. Life storms can be physical like a lightning strike or chronic pain, or emotional like my dad, or how about spiritual like a distraction from God, I’ve got lots of those storms in my life! Storms destroy. We lose something or maybe everything in storms.

So what do we do? As human beings we pick up the pieces and rebuild. If we are Christians we have a strong ally. God in his word promises restoration. I’ve been mulling this over during this past week as I thought about this promise of restoration:

“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” (I Peter 5:10 NIV)

So I decided to start looking at the words restore and restoration in my Holy Bible. I plan to read daily on this subject. I hope to understand this cycle better. My understanding now is loss helps us shed the past, like a butterfly shedding its cocoon to get ready to fly. Without loss I can’t continue to grow. I’m stuck like the chick in the eggshell struggling to get out. With restoration (work) I get to enjoy the fruits of a new life, and get to be a cute fuzzy chick for a while!

I’m sure I’ll be sharing more since my understanding will probably change as I research this topic in the scriptures. So far I have 122 passages to look up.My goal is one per day.

The comforting thing about my faith is I know after this life, all the things that are good will be returned to me. I will be restored. In spite of my notoriously off-key noise (singing), I will be able to raise that joyful noise unto the Lord and dance with the angels again (see Psalm 100:1-5 KJV). I just hope the angels can stay on key with me singing along! I will be able to praise God out loud again!

Do what restores your soul. I’ll be doing some restoration work on my home and writing this weekend. Love Y’all,

Milly

P.S: If you are so inclined please join your prayer with mine:

Dear Jesus,

Bring hope and restoration to those impacted by the devastation of hurricane Harvey. I may not be able to help physically but I offer up my prayers for your hand to be on the people in need because of this storm. Please protect us from Irma, may the storm fizzle in the Atlantic and cause no harm or loss of life. Bring restoration to our Country from all the storms buffeting her. Amen. Love Milly.

Thank you for joining your prayers with mine.