Transformation and Restoration

One of my favorite things in life is to take something that once served a purpose and transform it completely into something you never saw coming, but that was a sparkle in my eye from the time I began contemplating it. I would be no good on restoration shows or videos, because I very rarely see anything for what it used to be, but for what it can become.

These thoughts came to my mind as I was working on my daughter’s dresser. Let me tell you the story.

There was a time in my life, I had absolutely nothing to my name. I was hurting for the smallest of things. When a friend heard about my need, she sent me a message with a picture of two dressers and a basket of hangers. She said, it isn’t much, but I want you to have it if you need it…and suddenly I found myself in tears, realizing how very overwhelming blessed one could feel for someone else’s “not much”.

Since that day, those tired old dressers have been in my life and served more purposes that you could ever imagine. They have been in my house, my person’s house, the man cave, kid’s playroom, and now, one sits, contently in the room of our soon-to-arrive rainbow baby girl’s room.

I could go into great detail about who I used to be, what brought me to such a place of desperate need, just like I could post on here the pictures of what the dresser looked like the day it arrived at my front door. And, that would be it’s/my testimony of who I was and how far I have come. But do you know what is amazing about God, that we humans do not yet have the privilege yet to do? He remembers our sins no more!!

That means, those old pictures, what we used to be, the mega transformation of what once was and now is, is NOT how God sees us! Is your mind blown yet? We wanna see the before and after. We wanna see the heavy us, and now the skinny us, side-by-side. We wanna see the old transformed into new and see the incredible difference that occurred. But God…He doesn’t want to remember because He doesn’t need to. What we once were is no more. We are transformed by His grace and the reminder of what we were is just a recalling of the blood that was shed to purchase us and pay our penalty.

As I pondered on these things, God started bringing such a beautiful story to mind. With each piece that I have transformed, it required different tools, demolition, devotion, and dedication. I saw what it could become, and then took all of my skills and time and put my entire heart into its transformation. Now, it stands a masterpiece in the eyes of its creator and I have no desire to see it in its original form anymore.

So, here in lies the difference in our transformation vs our restoration. I am nothing of who I used to be. The person I used to be, I am truly mortified and ashamed of. I look back on wasted years of giving myself over to the desires of my own flesh and the damage that was done, will never, on this side of heaven, be erased from my memory. The scars I bear are made up mostly of my own doing and my own allowing. But, I have been transformed. God looked at me, headed in the opposite direction of His will, and He had a plan. It would take my surrender and His work, but I would soon be no longer recognizable from the person I used to be.

But, the devil…he is sly.

He likes to wave the old me in my face whenever I try to continue on being that new transformed person. He flashes the before pictures in my face and demands I relinquish my fantasy about being a new vessel. He tries to make me believe I am a hypocrite for thinking I could stand and sing in the choir at church, or write a blog about the goodness of God, or teach my children to follow after the Lord, or pray with my husband. He is most certainly the liar (1 Peter 5:8; Ephesians 6:12; John 8:44) and when his deception takes hold in my life and starts to slash at every fiber of my being that God has transformed…that is when restoration comes to the rescue!

To be restored is to be returned to your original condition.

To be transformed is to make a thorough or dramatic change in the form, appearance, or character of.

Can you see the difference?

I often have used the words interchangeably and in most cases, the wrong way. But God took me on a journey through His grace of transformation and restoration in my life while I worked on Aleyna’s dresser and now, I have that beautiful moment of God and me time soaked into its transformation.

Isn’t it amazing when God meets you where you are? When He hears your secret prayers and shows up with His Spirit to remind you who you are? Oh what a wonder that Jesus saw me, the day He died, and knew my name, and saw my sin, and the day I trusted Him, He chose to remember it no more and transform my life to who I am today….and doesn’t leave me there, but restores me everyday so that I remain refreshed and usable and perfect for His calling for my life!