Originally published Sunday, 23 August 2015.
“This is what the Lord says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them. Once more fields will be bought in this land of which you say, ‘It is a desolate waste, without people or animals, for it has been given into the hands of the Babylonians. Fields will be bought for silver, and deeds will be signed, sealed and witnessed in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, because I will restore their fortunes declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 32:42-44 (MSG)
Our stories were written for God restore them.
I was thinking about this today as I commented to my husband that he needs a haircut.
It took months after his last chemotherapy treatment, and then radiation, for his hair to thicken and take on a healthy sheen again. It took months for it to grow to the point where it needed regular cutting again.
As I look at his head now I see there is life in follicles that seemed dead for good. His body is embracing life. Every cell is choosing to live.
I saw restoration in the bible today.
I was paging through the journal I kept when Xylon was first diagnosed with cancer.
I read through the words I wrote back in early 2012. There in my own handwriting I’d scrawled a promise in Jeremiah 32:42-22 I felt God gave me:
“This is what the Lord says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them. Once more fields will be bought in this land of which you say, ‘It is a desolate waste…Fields will be bought for silver, and deeds will be signed…because I will restore their fortunes declares the Lord.”
My thoughts just before reading this had been on friends of mine, two sisters, whose mother lies in hospital with cancer that is most likely in the end stages.
I’d been wondering what I could say to them that would help them get through some of the darkest days of their life.
And then I read this promise from the first few days of Xylon’s diagnosis and I was reminded that God restores.
I still push against the start of this verse, where it says, “I will bring this huge catastrophe on this people but…” For me it doesn’t make any sense that God could have any part of cancer (or any other life taking disease) but I also realise that I’m very small, and God is very big, and maybe I just don’t get a lot of stuff about who he is.
I don’t understand how God can restore many situations yet I’ve seen him bring my husbands hair back from the dead. I know that sounds like a crazy analogy but it’s real to me. It’s something I can feel and see and understand when so much of God’s work is a mystery.
This promises reminds me that I can make it through the dark times because I can hold onto the hope that at the end of it all God will take our tears and give us laughter, he will take our grief and turn it into wild dancing and weave flowers into our hair.
Our stories were written for God to restore them. {tweet this}
And if today all you feel like doing is crying your eyes out - that’s okay. Or if like me you feel like yelling at God and questioning his ways, that’s okay too.
One thing I’ve learnt is that it won’t last forever, that the dark days will give way to days of laughter, days where you will see hair grow where there was none, and gratitude pour from your mouth because of the God who has brought you through.
Ponder: Where have you seen a practical example something that you can see, touch and feel (like Xylon’s hair growing back) of God’s restoration in your life?
Prayer: Lord, I’m waiting for your restoration. Come quickly and breathe life into my broken places. Amen.
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Cancer comes only to steal and destroy
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- This was orginally published on my site in January 2014. To read more devotionals like this go to ilovedevotionals.com
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