Friday Fight 112: Restoring our Story

Every Friday, when I wake and pray, God places something on my heart to help me fight darkness beginning in our minds. Today is FF112.

If the pages in a book represented our lives, how many of us could say we thought our story would be completely different than it is now? Sure, we are thankful for our blessings and appreciate our lives, but we all have gone through difficult seasons. What about those whose current chapters are painful and the hurt endured was never imagined? We want to remove some of the painful pages, but what now?

Restoring our Story

Being someone who enjoys writing, I understand the process of editing, shifting, highlighting, or even deleting and how each change can significantly alter a story's message or tone. Editing like this can feel overwhelming, especially when given a deadline. Ever feel like someone has written on the pages of your life's story with a black permanent marker? Maybe in doing so, these marks have slowly bled onto other pages, becoming our dissipating identity as others randomly edit situations or benchmarks that once described us. Looking back over our story resembles an emptiness of genres that used to be but are no longer. But this is not the end!

Our stories have taken plot twists with characters coming in and out as we go through chapters we wish we hadn't. But after surrendering our hurts to God, we realize God took the things meant to hurt us, turned them around, and used them for His glory, all while healing our hurts. Yes, all of us have had our book altered, scribbled on, pages creased, sentences marked through, and painful circumstances highlighted. Well, get ready because it is not over yet!

Please be encouraged that tomorrow brings a new narrative covered by God's mercy and grace; He will restore every painful memoir. Jeremiah 30:17 explains, "For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal," declares the Lord." God takes everything darkness has stolen from us and graciously restores it. So, what does that mean exactly? It means God will bring honor, healing, and peace to the same area Satan tried to wound us most. He does this whenever we surrender to Him and not the flesh. Then, God publishes our stories through forgiveness to help heal others.

So how does darkness try to intervene with lies? Darkness will do anything to have us focus on our missing pages, words scribbled on, or marked through. But it is impossible to read two parts of the same book simultaneously. Darkness wants us to pick up our skewed lens and carefully inspect the damaged pages to bring pain continually. Pray for those who have brought negativity and destruction to your life. Pray, forgive, and be excited about what God is doing. He is the ultimate author, and He designs us to be a part of each other's story. Knowing who wrote our coming chapters gives us assurances of hope rather than the heaviness of uncertainty. Our lives can become distorted by repeated heartache. Once restored, we give our story to God, and in our healing, He removes our distorted view, and we live out God's version instead, that of restoration.

I want to personally thank those who have been a significant part of the fulfilling novel God has written and restored numerous times. I try not to look at my life's missing or damaged sections but instead embrace a new script with thankful anticipation. It is the culmination of what God has done that leaves me grateful for even the painful experiences. Those things that could have brought continual torment have pushed me toward God and community instead of away from Him and alone.

Pastor Shannon

New Life Calvert