Prior to Gospel Care and Restore, my soul was hemorrhaging—living in a broken world had greatly damaged my soul. 

I had worked in Palliative care for about 2.5 years. Although not all palliative care is taking care of dying people, the palliative care environment I had worked in was. It was not uncommon to see a couple of deaths each day. The death of an individual of any age is exceedingly difficult to experience, but sometimes we would even get people in their 20’s and 30’s dying from different cancers. Seeing death at such a rapid rate damaged my soul. 

But on top of that, to make matters worse…

A huge part of shifting how I viewed my story was learning about God’s intention for us to experience him deeply. Rather than feeling forgotten or abandoned, I had begun to realize that in a way that may appear backwards to the outside world, God had certainly not forgotten about me. In fact, calling out this part of my story is proof that God has never and will never forsake me…

When I thought about the new heavens and new earth, I imagined that I would no longer feel sadness over the rape. I wouldn’t be tempted to seek comfort through fantasy. I wouldn’t relate to others from a place of fear.

What captivated me most from Isaiah 65:17, though, was that the former things “shall not be remembered or come into mind.” When Jesus returns, I won’t even think about the rape. I won’t remember it. I won’t even think about remembering it!

Learning about Jesus’ desire to draw near to me by His Spirit and through His Word changed the way I approached reading the Bible.

During the dark days of grief over the assault, I opened the Bible longing to understand why God had allowed this terrible thing to happen to me. I often felt like I was met with silence. Restore helped me to understand that Jesus’ offered up His presence freely to me in the midst of my suffering.

Instead of looking to the Bible for answers as to why, I began to read Scripture through the lens of comfort. All over the pages of my Bible were promises of renewal and hope.

I had always thought the goal of spiritual warfare was to persuade God’s people to do bad things. While Satan certainly is in the business of leading God’s people into sin, Restore was helping me to understand an even more perverse goal of the enemy. He is daily trying to cause me to doubt God’s love for me.

It has been his goal since the beginning. 

I felt the force of these lies during the early months of my pregnancy. I was plagued with fear about potentially losing the baby. Every twinge or ache caused panic to ripple through my body.

As a pastor, it gave me great joy to watch the people of MCC engage with the material and be equipped to abide in Christ. People experienced communion with God through his word and were given tools to keep abiding in Christ.

Months later, we are still talking about and utilizing the concepts from that conference. The people of our church still look back and remember the impact of the time we had together.

One of the greatest joys I’ve experienced in life and ministry is entering into other’s stories.

However, it’s also been one of the hardest things, learning how to know how to help others see and savor God in the midst of their struggles with sin and suffering. It can be difficult to help them instead see their own story in light of God’s big story.

I have found Restore to be an excellent, thoroughly biblical, and gospel-centered tool that has helped me personally see and savor God more by helping me see my own unique story through the lens of God’s story.

Simply saying “Jesus is the answer” doesn’t address the challenges this present evil age presents to growing as a disciple. Saying these words doesn’t adequately show how Christ makes a difference when we’re overwhelmed by life’s struggles. Knowing Christ is the answer doesn’t automatically explain how we should care for one another. It doesn’t offer ways to get a larger percentage of the church into the small group ministry.

When we declare that Jesus is the answer in a simplistic way, his gospel will not be concrete or relevant enough to answer our questions about life and ministry.

Pain often leaves us feeling misunderstood. Satan has a way of making us feel as if our struggles are unique.

I had experienced this whenever I shared with someone about the assault. I resented their empathy. “What do they know? They don’t know what it’s like.” My heart could be remarkably callous towards others trying to encourage me from a place of understanding. Since the people caring for me often hadn’t experienced abuse, I easily brushed off their sincere encouragement with “they don’t get it.” 

I made a strategic decision a few years back to replace the word counsel with the word care.

I didn’t send out a memo or make campaign signs. I simply began to intentionally use the terms “care” and “caring” everywhere I would have used the words “counsel” and “counseling.”

 My husband and I were hardly out of the honeymoon phase of marriage when I started to reflect about being raped as a teenager. Even now, behind the safety of a computer screen, the word “rape” makes my body tense up. Familiar emotions wash over me. “You weren’t raped. You couldn’t have been raped. That didn’t happen.” But it did. 

We as a church had gone through several cyclical seasons of deep hurt and loss over a number of years. We had hit an emotional and spiritual wall and it was evident that not dealing with this deep pain and hurt would only perpetuate and devolve future ministry.

Robert and Karen’s spirit filled wisdom and grace was exactly what our leadership needed…

Throughout the summer, staff continued to talk about the impact Restore had on them individually, but also collectively, as it made them more understanding of each other and ultimately a better team. I would highly recommend Restore as a means of coaching and caring for your staff.

This is where we’re headed. This is our ending. And knowing that ending shapes our stories today.

Because we know how it ends, we can have courage and persistence to press on through our struggles. We know our struggles won’t last forever--we know we will rest in joy one day. This consummation gives us hope that all will be made right--even our hurts and scars, even the injustices in the world. He has promised that He will make it all new. This consummation gives us assurance.

Someday, your journey through brokenness will end.

I had been a “professional” Christian for a long time, serving in the church, and I wanted to relearn what it meant to simply be a Christian. I longed to find rest in my identity as a beloved child of God. Walking through the Restore material helped me to do just that. 

Does Jesus make a difference in our lives before we die?

There’s plenty of things we know in our Christian lives. We understand that God made us, that sin bent us, and that we needed Jesus’ blood to reconcile us. But sometimes, this all feels far-off to us. Jesus worked to fix our past state, and He’s preparing heaven as our future state—but we’re not sure how He impacts now.

But Jesus isn’t just about getting you into heaven. He’s concerned with more than the end of your life. He’s come to give us life now, and to give it abundantly (John 10:10). Jesus transforms our lives right now, through allowing us to live in God’s promises, presence, and power.

Restore is a rich, intentionally biblical way to engage marriages. It’s effective for every phase and stage of life and marriage, precisely because it is rooted in our stories, which are constantly unfolding, and God’s story, which is pertinent to any moment on our timeline. And it can be returned to again and again because our stories aren’t static.

You shouldn’t stop in the middle of a story. 

Would you ever turn off a movie right in the middle? If you did, then you stop when the team loses, when the bad guy wins. If you turn off Lion King in the middle, then Simba is stuck trying to sing his hurt away, and Scar remains king of pride rock. If you stop Avengers in the middle, Thanos wins, and half the universe is gone. We all know better than to stop a story in the middle.

But sometimes we do that with ours.

I wanted to learn more about implementing gospel care in the local church, so I reached out to Sojourn Church Midtown. Even though I was from out of state, Robert and Karen Cheong availed themselves to me and a friend when we were attending a conference nearby Sojourn.

What happened that day with the Cheong’s was significant for us; not only did they share lots of information (which we came in search of), but they personally cared for us with the love of Christ (which we didn’t ask for, but needed).

The most dangerous problems are ones you don’t know. 

Imagine you’re preparing for a long car trip, the trunk stuffed full with your suitcases, your passenger seat full of travel-snacks, and your mind assured that your car is in perfect condition. But it’s not. There’s something wrong with the engine. And you don’t know. As you drive, you may get frustrated with the weird noises and odd smell; but you’re sure nothing is wrong with your car. So you’re frustrated at the hurt to your ears and nose you’re experiencing--but you’re also in great danger of your whole car catching on fire. Something in the car’s design has gone wrong. Being ignorant of the problem puts you in danger.

God designed us to know and experience love. We saw last week how we are made to walk in communion with Him, in His peace, but we can be filled with anxiety. We were intended to experience His love--but so often, we don’t. What happened? 

Our world has broken down.