My Restore Story Chap. 6: Enjoying God Forever
“I am in awe of God’s goodness. A year and a half ago, the rape felt meaningless. Now God’s faithfulness shines through.” January 13, 2020
Prior to starting Restore, I was completely overcome by the brokenness in my own story. I wondered if I would always hurt this badly. Sometimes it seemed like I might.
Over time, however, I felt my heart healing. It felt like I was letting go of the pain. God was slowly replacing brokenness with peace and rest.
The Glorious Ending Makes the Suffering Seem Small
My favorite night of Restore was learning about the consummation of God’s story. I already knew that when Jesus returns, we will experience the fullness of God’s love and goodness for us, completely separated from our sin at last. But Restore helped me to grasp the way the end of God’s story, although yet to come, impacts our present realities. One day God will take away all sorrow and pain, but I had already experienced a foretaste of that reality through receiving comfort from God from His Word and His people during Restore.
During Restore, we spend time responding to the lesson and Scripture as a group. One of the questions asked was about which of the Consummation realities were hardest to receive given our story and struggles. I thought of Isaiah 65:17: “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.”
When I thought about the new heavens and new earth, I imagined that I would no longer feel sadness over the rape. I wouldn’t be tempted to seek comfort through fantasy. I wouldn’t relate to others from a place of fear. What captivated me most from Isaiah 65:17, though, was that the former things “shall not be remembered or come into mind.” When Jesus returns, I won’t even think about the rape. I won’t remember it. I won’t even think about remembering it!
I’ll be so swept up in the love of Jesus that the darkness of the abuse will be completely gone.
As I let my mind reflect on that reality, I responded to the group, “That sounds better than the rape having never happened.” I didn’t realize the significance of those words in the moment. Had I really confessed that God’s grand story actually made my suffering seem small? I couldn’t believe it! Over the course of the conversation with the group, I actually felt my whole body relax.
Jesus’ Touch Takes Away Our Grief
One night during those final weeks of Restore, I woke up around 4:30 in the morning. I felt tempted to fantasize, and I began to feel familiar grief wash over me. I began sobbing in my bed, so I went downstairs and opened up my Bible. I was discouraged because it felt like I should have kicked this sorrow by that point. Wasn’t that I was in Restore in the first place?
Flipping through my Bible, desperate for some encouragement, I read Matthew 8:1-3. In the Law, the lepers were considered unclean. They were forced to live outside of society and cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” lest anyone accidentally touch them and become unclean too. In some ways, being a survivor of abuse can feel like this. Unclean. Don’t touch me. Broken. Unclean.
The leper in Matthew kneels before Jesus, the God man, and in what may have been with his last ounce of hope he had, he says, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”
With a touch—a gentle, healing, restorative, honor-giving touch—Jesus responds, “I will; be clean.”
I began to remember talking about Jesus’ life and ministry in Restore, how Jesus restores honor to a disgraced people. How he came into this world with a physical body and was tempted, suffered, persecuted, and misunderstood. How he endured a brutal and violent death. How he physically died, and he rose from the dead. How one day, he will restore all creatures and touch. The former things—the uncleanness, the fear—will not even come to mind.
These last few week we’ve been sharing how Restore has shaped one woman’s life, and helped bring the healing of God’s love into her story. Interested in having God’s story speak into yours? Check out Restore: Changing How We Live and Love today!
