Restoration

 I've been doing a lot of glass repair work and restorations lately. It's partly because it was stacking up during the time of my broken elbow, and it's partly because I wanted to clean up the studio before working on new projects.

But it's got me to thinking...What does restoration mean in the context of God? It's an inherently messy process in my glass studio; is it messy for God?

I like the idea of restoration because it takes a product that was originally very  nice (perfect, in God's case, since He created us to be perfect) and cleaning it up, adding new parts as needed, to become new again.

When I restore a glass piece, I cannot make it exactly like it was created to be. It's impossible to match historical glass precisely. Sometimes I have to substitute wood pieces for rotted sections. I use the original materials as much as possible, but it's not usually possible to recreate the piece exactly.

But the Bible says that God will restore us to perfection, to everything we were created to be. Whoa! What a promise! My restoration work is highly imperfect, but it pleases me to "fix up" a piece. How much more joy God must get from the idea of restoring us to all we were created to be!

And what a thing to contemplate: We, imperfect and flawed as we are, are going to be restored to perfection. Because God loves us enough to provide Grace through Jesus Christ, we can look forward to the future knowing that we will one day truly be all we can be.

Amazing. Wonderful.

God.