Restore the Years

                                Restore the Years

Photo Courtesy by Lori Kennedy

By

Lori Kennedy 

“…I will restore to you the years the swarming locust has eaten…” Joel 2:25 (NKJV) 

As I was going through my healing journey, the book that I was reading kept referring to the scripture Joel 2:25, “…I will restore to you the years the swarming locust has eaten…” (NKJV)  I always struggled with understanding how this verse applied to my life.  Even though I can use the time I have left well, I couldn’t go back and re-live those lost years in victory.  So how does that restore the lost years? I know each of us will interpret scripture a little differently and through our own lens.  This was one scripture that had always eluded me just a little bit. 

I was asked to come give a short testimony and lead worship at a high school girl’s bible study.  Someone else was originally scheduled to do this and I was called in at the last minute due to a death in the family of the scheduled speaker.  I knew God was up to something here. 

By the end of the evening, one fifteen year old had taken her mother in the other room and told her that she had been raped two years earlier.  I have found that ministry is bittersweet at times.  I was heartbroken that this had happened to her but I was also filled with joy that she had the courage and boldness to tell someone.  Now she could begin to heal!  Her mother told me that her daughter was standing taller and with her head held higher when she left that evening than when she had arrived.  This young lady told her mother that she felt that a great weight had been lifted off of her shoulders that night as she revealed her secret.  

On the way home, I was in joyful and prayerful communion with God.  In that moment, I was being molded by the Potter as He revealed this scripture to me in a new and unique way.  He spoke quietly into my heart that through my obedience in telling my story, I was empowering this young girl to have the courage to realize and reveal her wounds.  Once this occurred, she could begin healing.  Healing would now come earlier in her life. 

What a praise this revelation was to me!  God showed me in a moment in time that more years could be restored to me than the years that I lost!  This was happening through the healing in the lives of others that would now come at an earlier time due to my obedience.  If this girl had waited to give up her secret and the chains it held on her life, continuing to make her decisions through fear and self-protection until adulthood, she may have lost joy and hope in her youth as I did.  Now she had the opportunity to live those years in victory.  In a mysterious and miraculous way only God can accomplish, those years can be restored to me through her!