Restoration

Monday in the Third Week of Lent

Restore us, O God of hosts;

show us the light of your countenance,

and we shall be saved.

Psalm 80:3

As both fear and risk of COVID eases in my area, I find I am now able to look ahead in a different way. Even knowing that there will be variants and outbreaks to come, I sense an opening. As if having traveled through a wilderness of hills and rocks and deep cervices, I have now arrived at a level plain and a vista has opened offering a wide view. I feel that restoration is in sight.

Restoration. Renovation, repair, renewal, rebuilding. All of these apply to the way ahead for me, my family, my community, my congregation. What choices will we make? How will we recognize the ways in which we have been transformed?

Restoration implies bringing something back to its former glory. Yet something restored is also new, with its own character, imbued with the marks and mars of experience and wear and time.

As God restores us, we will be brought to our beloved selves and also be made new.