One of my closest friends and mentor shares a podcast with her best friend entitled “Starlight : conversations with women about finding real rest and true life.”  Our prayer group was having our Christmas party and they invited all of us (women + husbands) to share on the podcast about what God has redeemed in our lives in 2018.  I was so thankful that I had a real excuse to not attend this party because 1) being the only single one in a room of married couples is my nightmare and 2) I could not think of anything that God had redeemed in my life in 2018.  It was a horrible year! Still single – and spent most of the year distant from God.

As I listened to the podcast, post-upload, it all dawned on me.  I was searching for an outward redemption in my life – a broken relationship mended, a dead dream re-birthed, a missed opportunity resurfaced, something tangible. I could not think of anything like this that had happened in my life in 2018.  As I listened, I realized that God did redeem something in my life… God redeemed parts of me!  Things that I had no idea needed to be or could be redeemed.  Things that I would have described as a part of my personality : fear, anxiety, low self-confidence, low self-worth, intimidated, quiet in group settings, and the list continues.

At the end of 2017/beginning of 2018 I asked God if He would give me a word to describe what He saw for me in 2018, what His plans were for my life : He told me “restoration.”

Immediately I thought this meant the restoration of a broken romantic relationship. Thank God that my God’s plans for me are greater than my plans for me. The definition of restoration is this : the action of returning something to a former owner, place, or condition.  God used 2018 to redeem and restore me to the way that He made me to be all along. He restored my identity and the way I think of myself back into His hands rather than the world’s. He redeemed and restored my self-confidence, my self-worth, and my voice; He freed me from my fear and anxiety.

I don’t mean to make this all sound so simple : I lived with a lot of anxiety, I prayed one night for God to take away the anxiety, I woke up and no longer had anxiety.  No, no. That’s not how it happened.

As I mentioned before, I believed that all these different parts of me were just who I was.  The way I saw it : some people have low self-confidence, some people have a lot of anxiety. I believed that in this world, that is just the way it is.  

Oh goodness, please hear me, this is not the way it’s supposed to be!

We have an enemy, a strong one.  One who preys on us not daily, but every single second of every single day of our lives.  God intended for us to live freely and the enemy intends for us to live in chains; he will whisper all sorts of lies and manipulate every situation to keep us from our true glory.  

The good news is that God wants to restore us to the individuals He made us to be and we don’t have to wait for Heaven to receive it!  Jesus hung on a cross, He died, He resurrected, and He ascended into Heaven so that we could have freedom – and have it now!  

A common misconception is that Jesus died so that we can one day go to Heaven and live in Eden restored – and YES, this is true – but it is also so.much.more.

Jesus paid the price for our salvation and for our freedom, and that freedom is ours NOW! I’ve heard it explained in an analogy similar to this (I’ll make it a little more me) : somebody bought you a Range Rover Sport- it is sitting at the dealership waiting for you to come and pick it up. It is already paid for and the title is in your name.  Are you going to go receive it or are you going to thank the person but leave it there?  I’m for dang sure going to get that car RIGHT NOW!

It’s the same with our freedom : it’s paid for and has our name on it, Jesus is just waiting for us to go to Him to receive it. 

Going to God open and willing to hear what He has to say is what led to the restoration of these things in my life.  I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, I didn’t know I needed to receive these things specifically.  I went to God, knowing that the enemy attacks me, and I let Him lead me to the places I needed to go in prayer with Him.  I couldn’t have gone to these places on my own, I couldn’t have realized who I was intended to be (who I REALLY am) before the enemy got a hold of me, I couldn’t have forced a change in my “personality,” there is nothing that I could have done to restore myself to who I was made to be.  

So actually, yes, it is simple, in the way that it takes no man-power from us.  What it requires is us being intentional, seeking God and His voice, not being scared that we’re being an annoyance or a bother by asking Him the same question again and again.   Jesus, how do You see me?

His promise of “restoration” on January 14, 2018 has birthed into something so much more than I could have ever imagined.  Thank you, Jesus, that the freedom to be who You intended us to be is available in this lifetime, if only we receive it.