Restored Living Through the Waves of Life

Written by Jaelyn Harrel

Encouragement for those of you who feel like there is a lot of uneasiness in your life…

In June 2018 I was at a prayer retreat. 6 months after I had found out about Josh’s infidelity and Same-Sex Attracted desires. My heart was so open and wounded… so unhealed. So much of my life looked so radically different. 

I wasn’t in a bad place, but I wasn’t in a healed and free place either. I liken it to when you have a wound that is infected. That was our marriage back in Feb 2018. We could see the infection and (for lack of a better visual) it was starting to seep out and we couldnt ignore it anymore. 

In the 6 months leading up to this prayer retreat we had done more therapy than I’d ever done in my life and I’d cried more than I had in my entire life. As I drove down the driveway to the farmhouse in my car I felt the heaviness of the secret I carried in my heart. A burden Jesus was bearing with me every day along with a few trusted friends 

This prayer day was designed around praying and fasting until the evening when we would all break our fasts together and share in a wonderful meal. I had no idea what God would speak to me…. 

I’ve carried this message in my heart for 6 years and today is the day the Lord decided it was meant to be out in the world. 

This retreat was designed to have therapeutic elements (art therapy, silence and solitude, listening to the Lord). We each got a journal and were told to “write down what the Lord is giving you. Draw pictures of the visuals he gives. “

This retreat was where God first gave me the word RESTORED. 

I want you to think about a beach. The sound of the waves coming in and out rhythmically, the sand in your toes, the connection to what I would argue was the most beautiful part of God’s creation. The Lord gave me this image of a beach. The sand all stepped in and chaotic, and with one swipe of a wave… everything that was previously written on the sand… gone. RESTORED. 

I then heard the Lord say, this is what I want to do in your life. I want to wipe the whole slate clean. All the hurt. All the abuse. All the pain. I want to RESTORE it all. 

But what happens to sand after the wave comes? It gets messy again. People walk all over it, run all over it. But the Lord was so good to point out this to me to… HE WILL NEVER STOP RESTORING. 

Just like the waves on the beach He will continue to wipe the slate clean time and time again. Waves of hardship will come and the Lord will be in them wiping the slate clean with the water. I just love that somehow this harsh body of water called a wave can make the sand SO SMOOTH. Not a bump is left it in. 

I think it is tempting to want Restored Living to look like Eden before The Fall, but it’s not like that. We can not escape the hurts of this world, BUT WE CAN ride the waves with God as his grace smooths out and heals the marks we have been given. 

So I don’t know what you are going through today or what that burden is on your heart that you very much might be carrying alone. What I want you to know is walking with Jesus is the only way to living Restored. The dance you will do together of experiencing pain and needing grace for this fallen life will be the best most calming dance of your life.

I’m not saying it’ll be easy… vulnerability and surrender is harder work than you will ever know. But the easy yoke is where the restoration you seek lies. 

Ride the waves with Jesus my friend. He will restore… again and again and again and again…