My Restore Story: Created For Love
It makes sense to start at the beginning of a story. Beginnings offer us context and purpose for the rest of the story. A lot of times, insignificant or confusing parts of our story find meaning and significance in light of the beginning of God’s story - creation. Many of our most existential questions find their answers when we examine God’s creation of the world.
Lesson four of Restore highlights one of those existential questions - why did God create me? “God made you, because he loves you and wants you to enjoy communion with him.”
That one sentence dramatically changed the way I viewed the assault.
Prior to and during Restore, I was obsessed with God’s role in our suffering. If God was good and powerful, why hadn’t He stopped the rape? That question began to haunt me. I felt tempted to believe Satan’s whispering lies. Perhaps God wasn’t good or powerful.
But everything changed if God created me specifically for loving communion with Him.
We commune with God when we know Him, experience Him in our soul and body, and image Him by living according to His Word. Having been a Christian for several years, I knew what it was like to experience God’s love and goodness. I’ve walked through my neighborhood, looked up at the tall, green trees and been reminded of all the ways God has provided for me. I had experienced God’s comfort in His Word as truth poured into my heart like a soothing balm. But when I thought about the assault, God’s love and goodness for me were hard pills to swallow.
I’d like to think that the rape was beyond God’s control, but it wasn’t. That is so painful.
And yet, I have experienced God more fully because of it. And so have others. This was true during Restore, and I have seen it even more in the months since we’ve finished Restore. I’m still not sure why I’ve suffered in specific ways that I have. But because God’s intention in my suffering all along is deep, rich communion, in a weird way, my suffering makes sense.
This lesson was a turning point in how I understood my story. Knowing that I was created out of love and for love changed the way I read the Bible throughout the week. I came to God’s Word expecting to receive God’s love. I was reminded in Psalm 139 of God’s delight for me. So often I felt as if God tolerated me because of a promise He’d made long ago. I believed that it was difficult for God to love me.
But the Holy Spirit allowed me to see that God’s love for me is not out of obligation; God delights in His love for me. The rape had left me feeling guilty and fearful. But God’s steadfast love for me and relentless pursuit of me stood in stark contrast to the guilt and fear I was experiencing.
Where sin had increased, grace was abounding.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be 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.
Missed part of the story? You can read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 here!
