Releasing the life we planned to embrace the life that is waiting for us.

The Truth of Restoration

We all want our hearts to be healed.

But once you’ve been traumatized  you just can’t bear the thought that it could happen again. Everything in you tells you to hunker down, to cut your losses, to settle for a little bit of happiness. That’s when you need to act counter-intuitively, pick up your life again and move on down the road.

You need to choose the work of restoration.

There are times when I’d rather do almost anything other than the hard work of restoration and recovery. And what is that work? It’s the equivalent of ordering timber and bricks and starting to build the walls of hope again in our lives.

It means being willing to release the life we planned to embrace the life that is waiting for us.

Here are just a few things it has entailed in my life:

• The work of hope—which means being willing to say you need restoration and actually asking for the help you need.
• The work of waiting on the Lord—quieting down my life so I can hear...trusting his timing...staying in curiosity and out of judgment as to what God is doing.
• The work of honesty and transparency. In the aftermath of trauma, that could mean shouting at God and telling him how you feel. It can mean refusing to put on a happy face and insisting that everything is all right. There are certainly times when you need to control your feelings for the sake of others. But your restoration absolutely depends on finding a place to confess your honest thoughts and feelings—at very least, in prayer, in a journal, or with a few friends who are close to you.
• The work of “controlling the wild horses.” I love the way my friend Emily describes this.  She’s referring to that tendency we all have, but trauma victims have more than most, to let our “vain imaginations” run away with us. If we give in just a little to fear, panic and worry, those emotions can quickly take control of our lives. So while we need to be honest with our feelings, we also need to be alert to the ways our thoughts can run away with us and learn to short-circuit the runaway thoughts. In the process, as the apostle Paul describes, we move toward being ‘transformed by the renewing of our minds.'
• The work of obedience instead of instinct. Our instincts can serve us well in the early moments of trauma. A “fight or flight” response could actually save our lives in an accident. But as we move from survival toward restoration, our instincts can being to get in the way of what God wants to do with our lives. Your instinct may be to pull away and withdraw when you need to press in to relationships…or to hang on too tightly when you need to let people make their own mistakes.  I tend to rush in to 'fix' things instead of waiting on God’s timing. But I’m learning obedience sometimes has to trump instinct in this too. We have to act on the light we’re given, do what we know to do. And all this takes both courage and discipline.
• The work of forgiveness. Bill Ritter sums this up beautifully: “Sooner or later, you will have to forgive what you can’t understand. For you may never figure it out. Or even if you do, the conclusions you reach in your head may not necessarily heal what you feel in your heart. The only way out of your pain may be to start splashing forgiveness in every direction…forgiving the one who [caused the trauma]…forgiving yourself for anything you did or didn’t do, just before it happened…forgiving God for allowing it, or not stopping it…and even forgiving circumstances for being so damn hard and weighted against you.” [1]
• The work of gratitude. This is simply looking for signs of God’s presence in our lives and resolving, by choosing to “give thanks in all things.”
• The work of modeling faith and integrity. This does not mean faking a faith, covering up our doubts, or sacrificing our integrity to our witness. In fact, it means the exact opposite. As God walks us toward restoration, it’s good to realize that others—our children especially—are watching the way we walk, and how we live into our own restoration can have a powerful impact on their relationship to God. The more honestly and trustingly we can walk, the more integrity we manage, the more we confess our mistakes but accept forgiveness…the more others will be blessed and helped.

I cannot tell you how the work of restoration will look in your life. Or how God will grow you though your times of sorrow or loss. But I know He will...He will grow you into healing...He will grow you into wholeness...and He will use your hard work of recovery to bring forth his (amazing might I say) grace.

 

 

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[1] Bill Ritter, Take the Dimness of My Soul Away: Healing After a Loved One’s Suicide (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 2004), 49.

Comments

[Mimi Foster]

Oh, Tammy this was not only beautiful, but very timely indeed. Thank you so much for sharing.

[Tammy]

Thanks Mimi for your feedback...wisdom in the pain baby...God sees you...

[Rachel Anne]

Thanks for this post - had to pass it along via tweet. :)

[Pamela]

Thank you so much, Tammy! Shared it on Facebook & Twitter.

[Beth]

I needed to read this, it's perfct for the work God is wanting to do in me and I've just been realizing I haven't been letting him.

[Twyla Beyers]

I loved this, Tam. So much solid truth...you are an amazing sister. You are the real deal...you walk your talk, and I so appreciate you, Dear Heart.

[Melinda Nelson]

Thanks for this. Just came across it today and it is timely. I'm in Mozambique to help a friend who runs an orphanage, but she was brutally attacked and beaten in the head before I got here, so she is now in South Africa and beginning the journey of healing.

[lhyre]

thanks for sharing this,it is very timely with what i'm going through right now, i know GOD is in control...so blessed, once again, thank u so much....:)

[Tammy]

Melinda...how terrible...I am so sorry to hear this...the work you do is so amazing...what is your blog?

[Bonnie Gray]

Tammy, this is my personal fave so far in your teasers for "The God Who Sees You". I wanted to just let you know. I come back to this time and again in the past couple months since reading this, as I take some steps towards the new. The old likes to hang onto me. :) Keep pouring and thank you for living the Lifegiving faith, so that this precious stuff flows from you to us, friend!

[Mandy]

Love this post, thanks! I'm at a point in ministry where it is absolutely vital that I walk out what I believe and no longer hide behind the masks that are so easy and sometimes comfortable. But the awesome thing is that I'm finding He is using my openness, however painful, to help others in this journey, and that makes it worth every uncomfortable second.

I emailed you shortly after Hearts at Home in November, and after plowing through Lifegiving, I have seen God use it in a jillion amazing transformational ways in my life. Praying God continues to expand your ministry and use you to stretch and grow others the way you have me! xo

[tammy]

Thank you Mandy for your note...what a word of life it was to me today. God bless you girl as you learn to live more and more free...it is a lifelong journey!

[Paula]

Touched me in a special way today. Thank you. I want to share this with a special girl in my life who needs this now

[tammy]

Thank you Paula