Restoration

Christmas is a spiritually charged season, and being that the last 6 months have been particularly spiritually heavy, this Christmas proved no different for me. But while most Christmas messages center around themes of salvation and reconciliation, it was God’s work of restoration that was made most visible to me this December.

In the not too distant past I was spending Christmas Eve home, alone. While my faith in God remained intact (if only barely), any faith I had in the church, in family, and in community had been shattered over the months leading up to December. This festive season that used to fill my heart with so much joy and blissful anticipation had become dreaded; every Christmas song and tree, all of the lights and decorated houses reminded me of the tremendous loneliness and loss lurking in my heart. That familiar “Christmas feeling” was an unfortunate, added casualty. All of the things that had always signified Christmas to me were gone. Where would I find Christmas if not on stage, at church, singing my favorite Christmas songs? What would Christmas be without my family gathering to open gifts together? What would Christmas mean without my closest friends to watch cheezy claymation Christmas movies with? At that point I just gave up. I resolved to “get through it”any way I could. I knew there would be no restoring of this holiday; no rejoining of my family, no returning to said church, and no chance of reviving those friendships.

What I didn’t know then is that God’s ability to restore goes far beyond the limits of what my mind can conjure. He is far too creative to simply restore me to my former “glory,” He takes the best of the old and makes it new.

During the years my parents were together, my sister and I tolerated each other at best. Since their divorce, she and I have grown closer than I ever would have dreamed possible as a child. God has restored my sense of family through my relationship with my sister.

For years I believed my time singing (at church or anywhere else) was over. This Christmas I was so humbled to be a part of the Christmas Eve services at my new church. But it isn’t just the church location that has changed for me- it’s my heart. God has restored my sense of worship and given me an outlet and people who cultivate my creativity and my passion for singing.

And while I miss those who were a part of my old community most at this time of year, I can’t help but thank God for the way He has restored and renewed my understanding of what true friendship is, and surrounded me with people who have loved me through all of the grief and pain and loss of the last 4 years. The people who have really stuck by me.

My vision of restoration always involved a returning to the way things used to be. But God doesn’t care about restoring my circumstances, He cares about restoring my soul. He’s still restoring my soul. He’s restoring me to the Cathi He originally created. The Cathi that’s been covered up and bowled over by others, and by myself. I’m still having a difficult time understanding this whole concept, but I’m beginning to see glimpses. And I think the first glimpse was Christmas.