Today’s post is a guest post by Angela. You can look forward to seeing a post from her once a month.
Recently I refinished my sister’s dining room table. When I was stripping the paint I quickly realized there were many layers. It appeared that previous owners had simply put new paint on instead of stripping the old away and starting with the bare wood. The result was a mess. Before I started stripping the table it wasn’t terrible- the newest layer of paint had mostly covered the imperfections but it was far from the beautiful table it once was.
The layers of paint were so thick it covered some detailing I didn’t know existed. At one point in the process I looked at the table and it looked terrible. I had to essentially destroy it to be able to restore it. It looked hopeless but I had to remind myself a vision in my head of the result. I could look at the now junky table and see the potential for something beautiful. In that moment I realized- I am just like that table.
We all realize we are flawed. So we try. We read self-help books, we make resolutions, we develop coping mechanism. We put on a happy face and say or do all the right things so no one sees the parts of ourselves we keep hidden. We want a quick fix. Just like all those layers of paint on the table it works- kind of. From the outside we seem to be ok. But the truth is we are still the same broken person underneath it all. But God wants to restore us. He looks at us and sees the mess we really are. He knows us fully, even the part we think we’ve covered up. But the good news is he also sees past all of that. He sees our potential- his beautiful creation the way it was want to be. He wants to destroy our lives in the very best way. God wants to restore our hearts and our lives to the way he designed us. The process can be messy and painful but the result is priceless.
When the table was finished it was completely unrecognizable. We were amazed at the transformation. I was really touched by my sister’s post sharing the before and after and telling everyone what her baby sister did. How much better will it be when we allow God to fully restore our lives and when people notice (and they will!) say “look what my God did!”