The path to restoration takes courage.
I recently had a gum graft. I put it off for a long time, but my dentist finally told me my time was up. My gum recession had gotten to the point that I was going to eventually lose my tooth if there wasn’t an intervention. I reluctantly made an appointment with a periodontist. The procedure was successful, but there was a lot of scraping to prepare the tooth for the new skin and I went home with a bunch of stitches.
I was really sore the next day as expected, with a good deal of swelling and a huge purple bruise on my chin. As I was sitting on my porch, reading my daily devotion, feeling the morning breeze on my skin and listening to the birds singing, it occurred to me that restoration is rarely easy or comfortable and is always a decision that takes courage.
I was reminded of my Daddy’s knee replacement years before. He was in a lot of pain and walking with a limp, before he finally agreed to the surgery. His rehab was painful, but he always went and in the end, it was all worth it. He no longer limped and and the daily pain that he had resigned himself to live with, was gone. Nothing would have changed if he hadn’t had the courage to seek restoration.
Whether it’s something physical like a knee replacement that can restore normal movement and quality of life or something even harder like the decision to restore a broken relationship, restoration takes commitment and hard work. It also requires faith because the in between can be grueling. There are bruises and scars that take time and patience to allow them to heal.
God calls us to restoration in our hearts and souls with Him and with each other. But, sometimes the emotional and spiritual restoration can be more painful than the physical stuff. Scraping away years worth of baggage like anger, pain, guilt and bitterness that we have allowed to accumulate in our hearts, takes hard work and courage, but the results, the freedom, the joy and the life, that comes from restoration is worth every moment.
My recovery from a gum graft reminded me that it takes courage for restoration to be possible. Perhaps you needed reminding too.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂