When God Restores What We Can Only See As Broken.

A dear sweet friend of mine turned 26 earlier this week and as I was thinking about how thankful I am for her friendship, I was reminded of a time when I didn't think we would ever be friends again. And in that moment, I was reminded of God's awesome restoring power.

I met Emily my second year at OBU through my roommate Hannah. What I distinctly remember about meeting her for the first time,  was her walking into my dorm room where we were watching A Knight's Tale and blurting out "He's dead," in reference to Heath Ledger. She didn't say "Hi, nice to meet you," or anything like that but the friendship was obviously meant to be because I found the comment hilarious. Maybe it's our awkwardness in social situations that forged the friendship, but whatever it was, we quickly became really good friends and it was hard to remember a time when I didn't know her. We all have friends like that, or at least I hope we do.

Over the next couple of years, Emily and I became really close friends and looking back I see how intentional God was in placing her in my life. I struggled a lot with friendships my senior year of High school, really feeling like I didn't fit in or belong with any one. When I went to college, God gave me some of the best friends of my life, friends that I can still call today and we can pick up where we left off even if we haven't talked in months. Emily was one of those people.

She became a spiritual accountability partner and really challenged me to grow in my faith. In December of 2009, we went on a mission trip with a group from our church to NYC and our friendship was strengthened even more. There's something to be said about the bonds of friendship when two  20-year-olds from Texas and Oklahoma  walk through Brooklyn at night together in the middle of a blizzard. I don't think I've ever been colder than I was at that moment, and looking back I was probably slightly scared to be walking through Brooklyn at night.  But we made it safely and I hope that we touched lives the rest of the mission trip.

Anyways, like I said after the mission trip Emily and I were closer friends than we had ever been. I was getting ready to finish my last semester of undergrad at OBU when things changed quickly and drastically with our friendship.

Because the details aren't important, I'm going to leave most of them out. What's important to this story is that essentially Emily and I went from being best friends one day to not even talking to each other the next. In the moment, it's easy to point fingers and say it's the other person's fault but looking back I take so much responsibility for how I handled the situation and the role I played in essentially ending our friendship.

I was so angry at Emily and at God and I honestly didn't understand how either of us could just walk away from such a strong friendship. But we did. And it was hard. There were lots of tears, lots of anger, lots of asking "Why? Why? Why?" and there really weren't a lot of answers.

I graduated in May of 2010 with plans to go to OU for grad school and my roommate Hannah and I planned to move to Norman. It seemed to both of us that we probably wouldn't be friends with Emily again and that she'd just be "that friend we had in college."

I'm so glad that wasn't God's ultimate plan. Remember- this is a post about restoration. So everyone take a deep breath and let's get to the good part…

At some point during my first year in PT school, Emily contacted me about meeting to talk. You have to remember, this was someone who I had literally ended a friendship with in a matter of days and I remember being a little hesitant to meet at first. I remember her coming to my house and us talking about some things that had been going on and how some things had changed. I remember her leaving that night thinking, at least we don't hate each other any more. (I don't think we ever really hated each other, but it felt like that at times.)

After that night, there wasn't some magical thing that happened where we liked each other again or where we wanted to hang out all the time. After that night I honestly don't know if we talked again for a year or so.  But it seemed that we had gotten back to a place of mutual respect for one another.

My last year of PT school however, I had the random notion to invite her to a concert with me in Dallas. It was the first time we had talked in a while and I remember again being somewhat hesitant about spending the weekend in Texas after we had barely seen each other in 2 years.

But I can say with totally confidence that it was definitely God's plan to restore our friendship at that exact time. There's no other plausible explanation to the fact that we went from hardly talking in two years to going to a concert together in Dallas.

It was like we had been friends the entire time and that our "falling out" had never even happened.  The beautiful thing about God resorting our friendship the way he did was the fact that we never even had to talk about what had happened in the first place.

Obviously we both knew there were hurt feelings on both sides of the table. At some point, we both realized that we had each been wrong somewhere along the line but no one came back two years later pointing fingers and looking for someone to blame for the whole situations.

What I can see now that I couldn't see then was that it was vital for each of us to walk through that season without the friendship to become the people that God wanted us to be at that time in our lives. I think if you ask either of us we would tell you it was such a growing (and challenging) time for each of us, but so worth it in the end.

We had both changed so much in the years where we didn't talk but it seemed to me that our friendship was stronger than it had ever been before. Some of my favorite memories from my last year of PT school involve hanging out with Emily, just ask her about a certain New Years Eve at my apartment…actually, don't ask her about that NYE.

When I think back on those years, I see God's hand and his power over our friendship and both our lives. Restoring my friendship with Emily was something only God could do. I certainly am not a person to back down easily when I think I'm right, and I always want to be right. But when I started looking at everything that had happened between us, I could see how I had been wrong, and I could also see how none of that even mattered any more.

It didn't matter to either of us who had been right and who had been wrong. It didn't matter the hurtful words we had said or the things  we had done wrong, we had essentially forgotten all of it. And it wasn't through my strength that I could do that, but only through God our Father.  Sometimes I catch myself holding on to hurts and wrongs that I feel have been done to me. The amazing thing about restoration here was that none of that mattered to either of us. God had handled every hurt that we had and he had brought healing all at once.

Today, I can tell you how very thankful I am for Emily and her friendship. I'm so thankful that God restored the friendship, and I love seeing what God is doing in her life and how He is using her to impact his kingdom. I'm also so thankful for the blessing that came out of such a time of struggle in my life.

God has shown himself to be faithful through the ups and downs of my friendship with Emily and he has shown that he is working all things for our good and that He alone is making all things news.

I honestly never thought that Emily and I would be friends again. I also didn't think that we would even talk to each other again, but God did a work in both of our hearts and because of it, I think we both received the blessing of a restored friendship.

As I've said before, I don't think that anger and bitterness is ever honoring to God, especially between believers. If we as Christians can't get along with those that we call our brothers and sisters how on earth are we ever going to get along with the world?

Please don't get me wrong here, ultimately it was not Emily or I that restored our friendship. That was 100% God. But, we had to be open to allowing his work in our lives and we had to be willing to respond when he told us to. God did the ultimate work of restoration when he sent his son to die on a cross for a our sins. Adam and Eve made the decision in the garden that would ultimately allow sin into the world and sever the perfect relationship with the Father.

However, God in his sovereignty loved us enough to send the ultimate gift of restoration. He is calling each of us to a restored relationship with himself through his son. Before we can ever have true restoration with those around us, I believe we have to have restoration with the Father. If you don't know if you have that relationship with him today, please ask someone to talk to you about it. Restoration of my relationship with God is the only thing that allows me to have relationships with other people.  

I know that the difference in a restored relationship with the Father and relationships with those around us is that God offers perfect unconditional love to us. Relationships with people are broken, full of hurt, and marked by sin in our lives. The beautiful thing and the thing I hope you get out of this post is that God can restore even those broken relationships. If he can restore sinners to himself, he can restore any human relationship. I said it before, I honestly didn't think that Emily and I would ever be friends again. I had gotten to a place where I was happy for her and the things that God was doing in her life however, I knew I wouldn't be a part of it. And then when I least expected it, in a totally unexpected way, God did a work of restoration. It wasn't anything Emily and I had done but thankfully we both responded to his call for restoration at that time.

There are relationships that I know of that seem way past the point of restoration for a number of different reasons. And maybe those relationships will never experience restoration on this earth. But I fully believe that God can and wants to restore relationships. We have to be willing to allow him to change our hearts, our thoughts, our actions towards those people, being willing to allow restoration where he is working. Whatever broken relationship you’re facing today, I pray that you would begin to see the threads of God's work of restoration there. Healing may be slow and it may take time, it may not come all at once like it did with mine and Emily's relationship, but God is always working, even when we can't see it or feel it. Whether it's a broken marriage, a broken friendship, a broken family relationship, whatever it is God wants to restore it.

Whatever the situation you're facing today, I hope this brings you hope. I hope you're able to see that God can and will restore relationships, even we don't see any possible way for that to happen.  Ultimately he wants to start by restoring your relationship with him. If you allow him into your life to restore that relationship, I can promise you things are going to change in your life. Relationships are going to be changed and you're going to see God's power to do anything. 

What Physical Therapy, Chalkboards, and Headbands All Have In Common.

If you're wondering what physical therapy, chalkboards, and headbands all have in common, the answer is absolutely nothing. Except for the fact that all three are important in my life right now.

I know it sounds weird to say headbands and chalkboards are important in my life.  It sounds weird, even to me. But what I've begun to realize is that God puts things in our lives to enjoy and to use to bring Him glory.

It just so happens that God's using those three things, no matter how different they each are, to teach me about the beauty in the passions He places in our lives, big or small.

As I was telling someone today, physical therapy has been what I wanted to do as a career since I can remember. As a freshman in high school, I had an ankle injury in basketball that required therapy and I remember telling my own PT at the time that I wanted to do physical therapy when I graduated. I have absolutely no idea where my first exposure to the field came from, but looking back I'm certain that desire came straight from the Lord.

In May I will have been out of PT school for two years and practicing at a job that I love for that same amount of time. Somedays I still catch myself thinking, "Is this really my life? How did I get so lucky to have a career that I love so much?" The truth is, luck had nothing to do with it.

I put in a lot of hard work, dedication, tears and laughter to reach my dream of being a PT and now I'm getting to live that out as my daily reality. But no matter how much hard work I put in, I couldn't have done it without the strength of a God who had plans bigger than I could imagine.

Long before I even really understood it, he was writing that dream, that passion on my heart and He was using circumstances and people in my life to prepare me to live out that dream today. In the two years that I've been practicing, I've met countless people and I've had the unique opportunity to be a part of each of my patients lives as they work towards healing in whatever form is appropriate. Sometimes being there, being such a vital role in the process is overwhelming and often brings tears and laughter, but even with the trials and heartaches at times, it's worth it to be living out something I love so much.

Sometimes I meet a patient that catches me totally by surprise for one reason or another and it's in those moments that I know God has me where he wants me. And that alone makes getting up and going to work every day worth it.

Now you're probably thinking, where do the chalkboards and headbands come  in? And I'm about to tell you. During my three years of PT school, there was little time for anything besides studying and there certainly wasn’t time for a hobby. At least not for me. Those three years seemed to drag on forever; when I wasn't in class, I was studying, and when I wasn't studying, I was in class.

Now I'm two years out of PT school, and there are still times I catch myself thinking there's something I need to be doing, something I need to be working on, or studying for. I'm always overjoyed when I realize there isn't. But once I finally grasped the concept of being out of school, I quickly realized I needed something to do to occupy my time.

Pinterest alone is a great time waster but it also gave me plenty of ideas for projects to tackle. And maybe somewhere in there I got the idea to start making chalkboard signs. The first one I made was for my niece's birthday, it was a huge hit (as big a hit as a chalkboard at a 1-year-olds birthday party can be) and the rest is sort of history. "Dirt Road Designs" was born,the headbands recently followed and I've ended up with this little side business that I absolutely love.

Whether it's the chalkboard signs, the headbands, or refinishing an old piece of furniture, I've realized that I absolutely love the creating process. And even more than that, I love presenting someone with something that's unique and special to them. I've always said I show love through giving gifts, it's one of my favorite things to do, and this allows me to do that on a regular basis.

Quite simply put,God has used headbands and chalkboards to instill a new passion in my life right now for creating pieces that are important to those receiving them. When I look at those two things in the whole grand scheme of life, headbands and chalkboards mean absolutely nothing but God has taught me that He can create blessings even in the little things. That's what these chalkboards and headbands have become for me. If I can brighten one person's day with a sign or even a headband then I did what I set out to do.

Now I say all of that to say this to you- whatever your passions, big OR small, live them out. Pursue them wholeheartedly and trust God that if he laid those passions on your life, He will be faithful to use those.

God can use absolutely anything to bring himself glory. He can use physical therapy or he can use a chalkboard sign and he works through different things in each of our lives at different seasons. That's what makes us each unique and that's what makes life fun and interesting.

I think we live in a society today that begs for every person to fit in, to look like everyone else, dress like everyone else, act like everyone else. And that's a boring life if you ask me. God created each of us to be unique with our own passions and loves that are important to accomplishing His will, in our lives and others. Don't be afraid to live that out and to be different. The God of the universe created you to be you and no one else can live out the job he gave you.

Take some time today and look at your life, look at your passions, look at those things God has placed in your life. Then go out and pursue them. No matter how big or small they seem to you, God can and will use them. It may be in the most unexpected way, but if God gave you those passions, then he has a plan to use them in your life for His glory. So share your passions with those around you every chance you get! You never know when it might be a blessing someone needed